it?"

Judith had heard of her Aunt Hester, but she only knew that she
herself had hands like her and that her life had ended when she
was quite young. Mrs. Foster was too much occupied by the
strenuousness of life to dwell upon the passing of souls. To her
the girl Hester seemed too remote to appear quite real. The
legends of her beauty and unlikeness to other girls seemed rather
like a sort of romance.

As she was not aware that Judith hated the Elevated Railroad, so
she was not aware that she was fond of the far away Aunt Hester
with the long-pointed fingers which could curl backwards. She did
not know that when she was playing in her corner of the room,
where it was her way to sit on her little chair with her face
turned towards the wall, she often sat curving her small long
fingers backward and talking to herself about Aunt Hester. But
this--as well as many other things--was true. It was not
secretiveness which caused the child to refrain from speaking of
certain things. She herself could not have explained the reasons
for her silence; also it had never occurred to her that
explanation and reasons were necessary. Her mental attitude was
that of a child who, knowing a certain language, does not speak
it to those who have never heard and are wholly ignorant of it.
She knew her Aunt Hester as her mother did not. She had seen her
often in her dreams and had a secret fancy that she could dream
of her when she wished to do so. She was very fond of dreaming of
her. The places where she came upon Aunt Hester were strange and
lovely places where the air one breathed smelled like flowers and
everything was lovely in a new way, and when one moved one felt