The house was deserted. The only sound came from the back yard, and
it was the echo of children's voices. It was not at all a merry
prattle; it was a steady uproar interrupted by occasional shrieks and
yells, a clatter of falling blocks, beatings of a tin pan, a scramble
of feet, a tussle, with confusion of blows and thumps, and then
generally a temporary lull in the proceedings, evidently brought
about by some sort of outside interference. If you had pushed open
the wire door, you would have seen two children of four or five years
disporting themselves in a sand-heap. One was a boy and one a girl;
and though they were not at all alike in feature or complexion, there
was an astonishing resemblance between them in size, in figure, in
voice, in expression, and, apparently, in disposition.
Sitting on a bench, watching them as a dog watches its master's coat,
was a girl of some undeterminable age,--perhaps of ten or twelve
years. She wore a shapeless stout gingham garment, her shoes were
many sizes too large for her, and the laces were dangling. Her
nerveless hands and long arms sprawled in her lap as if they had no
volition in them. She sat with her head slightly drooping, her knees
apart, and her feet aimlessly turned in.
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