Excerpt from The Lucky Piece: A Tale of the North Woods The tourists had passed a number of children already, but this one was different. The others had been mostly in flocks - soiled, stringy-haired little mountaineers, who had gathered to see the stage go by. The smooth, oval face of this child, rich under the tan, was Clean, the dark hair closely brushed - her dress a simple garment, though of a fashion unfavored by the people Of the hills. All this could be comprehended in the brief glance allowed the passengers; also the deep wistful look which followed them as the stage whirled by without stopping. A lady in the back seat (she had been in Italy) murmured something about a child Madonna. Another said, Poor little thing! But the boy in the front seat had caught the driver's arm and was demanding that he stop the stage. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.