She might well stare.  Her boy stood and smiled in the sun, and his shadow lay on the whitened steps.  Only the silhouette was not that of a little breeched boy at all, but of a little girl in petticoats; and it wore long curls, whereas the charwoman’s son was close-cropped.

The woman stepped out on the terrace to look closer.  She twirled her son round and walked him down into the garden, and backwards and forwards, and stood him in all manner of positions and attitudes, and rubbed her eyes.  But there was no mistake:  the shadow was that of a little girl.

She hurried over her charing, and took the boy home for his father to see before sunset.  As the matter seemed important, and she did not wish people in the street to notice anything strange, they rode back in an omnibus.  They might have spared their haste, however, as the cab-driver did not reach home till supper-time, and then it was found that in the light of a candle, even when stuck inside a carriage-lamp, their son cast just an ordinary shadow.  But next morning at sunrise they woke him up and carried him to the house-top, where the sunlight slanted between the chimney-stacks:  and the shadow was that of a little girl.

The father scratched his head.  “There’s money in this, wife.  We’ll keep the thing close; and in a year or two he’ll be fit to go round in a show and earn money to support our declining years.”

With that the poor little one’s misfortunes began.  For they shut him in his room, nor allowed him to play with the other children in the alley—­there was no knowing what harm might come to his precious shadow.  On dark nights his father walked him out along the streets; and the boy saw many curious things under the gas-lamps, but never the little girl who inhabited his shadow.  So that by degrees he forgot all about her.  And his father kept silence.

Yet all the while she grew side by side with him, keeping pace with his years.  And on his fifteenth birthday, when his parents took him out into the country and, in the sunshine there, revealed his secret, she was indeed a companion to be proud of—­neat of figure, trim of ankle, with masses of waving hair; but whether blonde or brunette could not be told; and, alas! she had no eyes to look into.

“My son,” said they, “the world lies before you.  Only do not forget your parents, who conferred on you this remarkable shadow.”

The youth promised, and went off to a showman.  The showman gladly hired him; for, of course, a magic shadow was a rarity, though not so well paying as the Strong Man or the Fat Woman, for these were worth seeing every day, whereas for weeks at a time, in dull weather or foggy, our hero had no shadow at all.  But he earned enough to keep himself and help the parents at home; and was considered a success.

One day, after five years of this, he sought the Strong Man, and sighed.  For they had become close friends.