But then it seemed
as if he had stupidly miscalculated the distance, or that his legs
were failing him, or that the girls came sweeping down the road at an
impossibly rapid pace; so that they were right upon him just as he
reached the stile. He drew aside, and, feeling that it was too late
now to turn his back, watched them as they passed.
The mistresses must have issued a sudden order of silence, for they
all went by without so much as a whisper. There were fifty of them,
but they seemed to be thousands. Dressed in their light blue summer
cloaks, golden-haired, brown-haired, a very few black-haired, they
passed two by two, with the little ones first, and bigger and bigger
girls behind--an ascending scale of size, so that he had the illusion
of seeing a girl grow up under his eyes, change in a minute instead of
in years from the small sexless imp that is like an amusing toy, to
the full-breasted creature that is so nearly a woman as to be
dangerous to herself and to everybody else.
Not one of them spoke, but all of them, little and big, looked at
him--very shyly, and yet with intense interest. He stood staring after
them, and presently their tuneful young voices sounded again, filled
the air with virginal music.
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