Athalie

"No."

"How did she come in?"

"I don't know. She--just came in."

"Was she a young woman?"

"No, old."

"Very old?"

"Not very. There was grey in her hair--a little."

"How was she dressed?"

"She wore a night-gown, mamma. There were spots on it--like medicine."

"Had you ever seen her before?"

"I think so."

"Who was she?"

"Mrs. Allen."

Her mother sat very still but her clasped hands tightened and a little

of the colour faded from her cheeks. There was a Mrs. Allen who had

been suffering from an illness which she herself was afraid she had.

"Do you mean Mrs. James Allen who lives on the old Allen farm?" she

asked quietly.

"Yes, mamma."

* * * * *

In the morning they heard of Mrs. Allen's death. And it was several

months before Mrs. Greensleeve again spoke to her daughter on the one

subject about which Athalie was inclined to be most reticent. But that

subject now held a deadly fascination for her mother.

They had been sitting together in Mrs. Greensleeve's bedroom; the

mother knitting, in bed propped up upon the pillows. Athalie,

cross-legged on a hassock beside her, was doing a little mending on

her own account, when her mother said abruptly but very quietly: "I have always known that you possess a power--which others cannot

understand."

The child's face flushed deeply and she bent closer over her mending.

"I knew it when they first brought you to me, a baby just born.... I

don't know how I knew it, but I did."

Athalie, sewing steadily, said nothing.

"I think," said her mother, "you are, in some degree, what is called

clairvoyant."

"What?"

"Clairvoyant," repeated her mother quietly. "It comes from the French,

clair, clear; the verb voir, to see; clair-voyant, seeing

clearly. That is all, Athalie.... Nothing to be ashamed of--if it is

true,--" for the child had dropped her work and had hidden her face in

her hands.

"Dear, are you afraid to talk about it to your mother?"

"N-no. What is there to say about it?"

"Nothing very much. Perhaps the less said the better.... I don't know,

little daughter. I don't understand it--comprehend it. If it's so,

it's so.... I see you sometimes looking at things I cannot see; I know

sometimes you hear sounds which I cannot hear.... Things happen which

perplex the rest of us; and, somehow I seem to know that they do not

perplex you. What to us seems unnatural to you is natural, even a

commonplace matter of course."