The sun at midday
The big , red , Irish matrons , whose innumerable progeny swarmed out of the adjacent doors , used to mock at the pale Western child . They fancied -- or , at least , affirmed it , between jest and earnest -- that she was not so solid flesh and blood as other children , but mixed largely with a thinner element . They called her ghost-child , and said that she could indeed vanish when she pleased , but could never , in her densest moments , make herself quite visible . The sun at midday would shine through her ; in the first gray of the twilight , she lost all the distinctness of her outline ; and , if you followed the dim thing into a dark corner , behold ! she was not there . And it was true that Priscilla had strange ways ; strange ways , and stranger words , when she uttered any words at all . Never stirring out of the old governor 's dusky house , she sometimes talked of distant places and splendid rooms , as if she had just left them .