Once a father was seated at the dinner table with his wife and children. A good friend whohad come to visit was eating with them. While they were sitting there the clock struck twelve,and the stranger saw the door open and a very pale little child dressed in snow-white clothescome in. It neither looked around, nor did it speak, but went straight into the next room. Soonafterwards it came back, and just as silently went out the door again.
On the second and on the third day it came back in exactly the same manner. Then thestranger finally asked the father, whose beautiful child it was that went into the next roomevery day at noon.
"I did not see it," he said, adding that he did he know whose child it might be.
the next day when it again came, the stranger pointed it out to the father, but the latter didnot see it, nor did the mother and the children see anything. Then the stranger got up, went tothe door of the room, opened it a little, and looked in. There he saw the child sitting on thefloor, and busily digging and rooting about in the cracks in the floor. When it saw the stranger,it disappeared. |