ught,
and was not yet hung up. All the savings of a year were shivered to
fragments in an instant. My horror at this catastrophe recalled my
presence of mind; for I was a poor woman, dependent for my bread on
the family. Poor women cannot afford to have fancies; some prompt
reality always startles them out of dream or superstition. My
superstition fled in dismay as I stooped over the fragments of
the looking-glass. What should I do? Where should I hide myself? I
involuntarily took hold of the mirror with the instinctive intention
of turning it to the wall. It was very heavy; I could scarcely lift
it. Pausing a moment, and looking forward at its shattered face in
utter anguish of despair, I saw again, repeated in a hundred jagged
splinters, up and down in zigzag confusion, in demoniac omnipresence,
the uncanny eye, the spectral shape, which had so appalled me. The
little phantom had arisen, its slim finger was outstretched,--it
beckoned, slowly beckoned, growing indistinct, it receded farther and
farther out from the saloon towards the shop.

The fascination of a spell was upon me; I turned and followed the
retreating figure. The shutters of the show-window were not yet taken
down, but thin lines of light filtered through them,--light enough to
see that the apparition made its way to a forbidden spot slyly haunted
by the little boy in his days of mischief,--a certain shelf where a
box of some peculiar sort of expensive confections was kept. I had
seen his mother, with unwonted generosity, give the child a handful of
these a day or two before his death. I could go no farther. A mighty
fear fell upon me, a dimness of vision and a terrible faintness; for
that child-phantom, gliding on before, stopped like a retribution at
that very spot, and, raising its little hand, pointed to that very
box, glancing upward with its solemn eye, as, rising slowly in the
air, it grew indistinct, its outlines fading into darkness, and
disappeared.

I did not fall or faint, however; I hastened out to the saloon again.
The door of the little room where the coffin stood was open, and
Madame stepping out, looked vaguely about her.

"Madame! Madame!" I cried, "oh, I have seen--I have seen a terrible
sight!"

Madame's face grew white, very white. She grasped me harshly by the
arm.

"What _are_ you talking about, you crazy woman? You are getting quite
wild, I think. Do you imagine you can hide your guilt in that way?"
and she shook me with a