"Gwendoline, you will have to pass into little Polly Finch, and work it out of your system. She is dying of scarlet fever, and you must enter into her body, and so rid yourself in time of the Black Ram." "Mother!--the Finches are common people." "So much the better chance for you." "And I am eighteen, Polly is about ten." "You will have to become a little child if you would enter her." "I don't like it. What is the alternative?" "To remain without in the darkness till you come to a better mind. And now, Gwen, no time is to be lost; you must pass into Polly Finch's body before it grows cold." "Well, then--here goes!" Gwen Venville turned, and her mother accompanied her down the path. The girl moved reluctantly, and pouted. Passing out of the churchyard, both traversed the street and disappeared within a cottage, from the upper window of which light from behind a white blind was diffused. I did not follow, I leaned back against the wall. I felt that my head was throbbing. I was a little afraid lest my fall had done more injury than I had at first anticipated. I put my hand to my head, and held it there for a moment. Then it was as though a book were opened before me--the book of the life of Polly Finch--or rather of Gwendoline's soul in Polly Finch's body. It was but one page that I saw, and the figures in it were moving. The girl was struggling under the burden of a heavy baby brother. She coaxed him, she sang to him, she played with him, talked to him, broke off bits of her bread and butter, given to her for breakfast, and made him eat them; she wiped his nose and eyes with her pocket-handkerchief, she tried to dance him in her arms. He was a fractious urchin, and most exacting, but her patience, her good-nature, never failed. The drops stood on her brow, and her limbs tottered under the weight, but her heart was strong, and her eyes shone with love. I drew my hand from my head. It was burning. I put my hand to the cold stone bench to cool it, and then applied it once more to my brow. Instantly it was as though another page were revealed. I saw Polly in her widowed father's cottage. She was now a grown girl; she was on her knees scrubbing the floor. A bell tinkled. Then she put down the soap and brush, turned down her sleeves, rose and went into the outer shop to serve a customer with half a pound of tea. That done, she was back again, and the scrubbing was renewed. Again a tinkle, and again she stood up and went into the shop to a child who desired to buy a pennyworth of lemon drops. On her return, in came her little brother crying--he had cut his finger. Polly at once applied cobweb, and then stitched a rag about the wounded member. "There, there, Tommy! don't cry any more. I have kissed the bad place, and it will soon be well." "Poll! it hurts! it hurts!" sobbed the boy. "Come to me," said his sister. She drew a low chair to the fireside, took Tommy on her lap, and began to tell him the story of Jack the Giant-killer.