But in Sara’s hungry eyes the old light had begun to glow and transform her world for her. Here in the attic—with the cold night outside— with the afternoon in the sloppy streets barely passed—with the memory of the awful unfed look in the beggar child’s eyes not yet faded—this simple, cheerful thing had happened like a thing of magic.
She caught her breath.
“Somehow, something always happens,” she cried, “just before things get to the very worst. It is as if the Magic did it. If I could only
in the skirting board, and was gone.
“I knew he wanted it for his children,” said Sara. “I do believe I could make friends with him.”
A week or so afterward, on one of the rare nights when Ermengarde found it safe to steal up to the attic, when she tapped on the door with the tips of her fingers Sara