There was nothing mysterious at all.
And yet Nancy Ross, sitting in her magnificent clothes, was conscious as she advanced towards her sixth year that she was not perfectly comfortable.

To say that she felt lonely would be, perhaps, to emphasise too strongly her discomfort.

It was perhaps rather that she felt inquisitive--only a little, a very little--but she did begin to wish that she could ask a few questions.
There came a day--an astonishing day--when she felt irritated with her mother.

She had during her walk through the garden seen a little boy and a little girl, who were grubbing about in a little pile of earth and sand there in the corner under the trees, and grubbing very happily.
They had dirt upon their faces, but their nurse was sitting, apparently quite easy in her mind, and the sun had not stopped in its course nor had the birds upon the trees ceased to sing.

Nancy stayed for a moment her progress and looked at them, and something not very far from envy struck, in some far-distant hiding-place, her soul.