“Little girl,” she said, in a faint voice.

“Yes, and what color are her eyes?”

The eyes within the glass became enlarged with excitement. The lips parted. Hyacinth put her face close to the glass.

“They are blue, also,” she said, shrinking.

“Very well, then. You, also, have blue eyes, Hyacinth.”

“Me!” She stared up at him, aghast.

“Certainly. Is not the little girl in the glass you?”

“No!” Her dilated eyes strained at the glass, then looked behind it and about her. She could see no other little girl in the room. There was only that face in the shining glass, with its blue, shiny eyes. With spasmodic working of features, she regarded it.

“This is you—certainly,” repeated Koma, pointing to the reflection.

An uncanny fear took possession of the little girl. Suddenly she raised her hand, knocking the glass from that of Koma.

“That’s not me. No! That’s lie. I am here—here! That’s not me.”

She burst into a passion of tears.

Raising the glass, Koma put it aside. He sought his mother immediately, and, with concern and perplexity in his face, told her of the incident of the mirror.

“Hyacinth was frightened—yes, actually afraid of the mirror. What can be the matter?”

“That is only natural,” said Aoi. “And I am much distressed that you should have frightened her with the glass.”

“But why should it affright her?”

“Because she has never seen one before.”

“Never seen a mirror before?”

“No. It is only of late years that they have come to Sendai, my son.”

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