He was lost

He was a lost soul without a home. I saw him sitting there in the puddle soaked with tears and drenched in life's unfortunate sorrows. Why he was there, how he'd gotten to the point he did I could only speculate? I looked down to him in the moment that I saw him, and felt pity. I was riding by, my husband and I, our carriage on its way to the grand ball. We were not late and still we seemed in a hurry. I watched him. His image was strangely pitiful and haunting. I wondered at his yellow hair it was grayed and browned by the dust and mud of sleepless nights in the gutter. It was his home, the gutter, I could tell by the rags and the dirt he wore. He stared at me with wide and watery, familiar eyes. I watched his pitiful stature, curled and crumpled. He was a balled up mass of child, looked about five, purity and innocence and life all barely intact. I could not help but wonder at him. His mangled self-worth. I wondered where he'd come from, whose he was. My blonde hair in their proper curls the jewels about my neck I played comparison in the moment I pitied him. I even considered throwing my purse to him as we passed. I had the money to spare and it would be no loss to me. He, I knew, would charge it a miracle and would never in his life see so much gold. I held my chin high and tight as a lady of my stature should. We rolled by and the carriage wheel doused him with more mud. Clutching my purse and my permanent look of distaste; I thought briefly of my own child. I'd had him in secret four or five years ago and tossed him quickly to the peasant class. After all a lady of my stature should not have a child when her husband's been gone across the sea for over fourteen months. I hid him well and loved him dearly, but I could not have him, the scandal alone would destroy my husband and myself and leave us penniless. Staring back at the boy with the familiar eyes I wondered. My own was lost but I could adopt another...