For her soul was alive and rich, and out of her soul, not education or habit, came the smallest of her virtues .-- Having finished at last, she took her besom to the door, and beat it against a stone.

That done, she stood looking along the path down the hill.

It was that by which her sons and daughters, every Saturday, came climbing, one after the other, to her bosom, from their various labours in the valley below, through the sunset, through the long twilight, through the moonlight, each urged by a heart eager to look again upon father and mother.
The sun was now far down his western arc, and nearly on a level with her eyes; and as she gazed into the darkness of the too much light, suddenly emerged from it, rose upward, staggered towards her--was it an angel?
was it a spectre?
Did her old eyes deceive her?
or was the second sight born in her now first in her old age ?--It seemed a child--reeling, and spreading out hands that groped.

She covered her eyes for a moment, for it might be a vision in the sun, not on the earth--and looked again.

It was indeed a naked child! and--was she still so dazzled by the red sun as to see red where red was none ?--or were those indeed blood-red streaks on his white skin?
Straight now, though slow, he came towards her.