A DARK VILLAGE CHILD 



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girl of nine or ten sitting on the grass at the side of 

 the wide green roadway in the middle of the village, 

 engaged hi binding flowers round her hat. She was 

 slim, and had a thin oval face, dark in colour as any 

 dark Spanish child, or any French child in the " black 

 provinces " ; and she had, too, the soft melancholy 



black eye which is the chief beauty of the Spanish, 

 and her loose hair was intensely black. Even here 

 where dark eyes and dark hair are so common, her 

 darkness was wonderful by contrast with a second 

 little girl of round, chubby, rosy face, pale-yellowish 

 hair, and wide-open blue surprised eyes, who stood 

 by her side watching her at her task. The flowers 

 were lying in a heap at her side; she had wound a 



