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LITTLE MISS BY-THE-DAY

BY

LUCILLE VAN SLYKE

Author of'E^e's Other Children'

WITH A FRONTISPIECE IN COLOR BY MABEL HATT

Copyright, 1919, By FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY

All rights reserved.

Published and Printed, 1923, by

Western Printing & Lithographing Company

Racine, Wisconsin

Printed in U. S. A.

LITTLE MISS BY-THE-DAY

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

Prologue i

I In the Barred Garden 19

II The House in the Woods 48

III Lost Dreams 98

IV The Unfinished Song 138

V '* Certain Legal Matters " 200

VI The Last Pretending 253

LITTLE MISS BY.THE-DA\

PROLOGUE

THE older I get the more convinced I become that the most fascinating persons in this world are those elusive souls whom we know^ perfectly well but whom we never, as children say, '' get to meet." They slip out of countries, or towns — or rooms even,— just before we arrive, leaving us with an in- explicable feeling of having been cheated of some- thing that was rightfully and divinely ours. That's the way I still feel about little Miss By-the-Day. Perhaps you, too, have been baffled by the will-o'-the- wispishness of that whimsical young person. Per- haps you, too, tried to find her but never did.

She sounded so casual and commonplace when I first began hearing about her that I let her slip through my fingers. She was just a little seamstress who had a *' vairee " odd way of speaking; it was quite a long time before I realized that everybody who spoke about her was unconsciously trying to imi- tate her drawling voice. And then I noticed that everybody who mentioned her smiled dreamily and

2 PROLOGUE

wondered where on earth she'd come from. I kept hearing, just as you probably did, odd scraps of things she had said, droll adventures in which she had figured, extraordinary and fantastic tales about the house in which she lived. And presently, when it was too late, I found myself listening to regretful murmurings of scores of baffled persons who couldn't find out what had become of her. She suddenly van- ished, leaving nothing behind her save her delectable house.

If you'll lend me your pencil a minute FU show you on the back of this envelope just how that house was situated. You can understand the whole amaz- ing story better if you keep in mind how the church on the corner and the rectory were tucked in beside that great house. For it is a big house, so huge that the six prim brownstones across the street from it look like toy houses. But Fve been told that in Brooklyn's early days there was no street, just a long terraced garden that sloped down to the river.

For all that the streets have crowded so disre- spectfully about it the whole place still has a sort of ** world-with-out-end-amen " air — perhaps because of the impressive squareness of its structure, great blocks of brownstone joined solidly; perhaps because of the enormous gnarled wistaria vines that stretch above its massive cornices — but one does feel as Felicia Day herself did when some one asked her

PROLOGUE 3

how long she thought it had been there. She said she thought it must have been there '' Much, much more than Always — it must have been jamais au grand — forevaire and more than evaire! ''

Maybe, hke me, youVe passed that house a dozen times and shuddered at the fihh of the little street.

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I used to hold my breath as I hurried by that dismal old rookery. I thought it the most hideous purga- tory that ever sheltered a horde of miserable humans.

But you needn't be afraid to pass it now ! The im- maculate sweetness and serenity of that wee street is like a miracle and the old house is a fairy dream come true.

Its marble steps are softly yellowed with age, an exquisitely wrought iron balcony stretches across the front above the high ceilinged basement and great

4 PROLOGUE

carved walnut doors open into a wide vestibule with a marble floor exactly like a bit of a gigantic chess- board. The transformation had so astounded me that I was almost afraid to touch the neatly polished beaten silver bell for fear the whole house would vanish.

** Coom in! '' cried a Scotchy voice from the base- ment. So I stepped across the tessellated floor of the hall into the broad drawing-room and stared out through the long French doors of the glass room at the green smudge of Battery Park beyond the river. There wasn't a soul in sight in any of the rooms and yet I felt as if some one was there. Perhaps it was just that I was awed by the discon- certing loveliness of the portrait of the brunette lady that hung in a tarnished oval frame above the drawing-room mantel. I looked at her and waited. Presently I coughed apologetically.

** Could I please find out if a — er — Miss Day lives here? Or — if anybody here knows her? "

The Scotchy voice lifted itself grudgingly above the vigorous swish of a scrubbing brush.

'* I dinna think ony one's home but th' Sculptor Girl — she's on th' top floor an' it's not I that knows whether she's in a speaking humor, but you're weelcoom to try her — "

It was raining, a miserable spring drizzle, yet the spacious hall seemed flooded with sunlight. There's

PROLOGUE 5

an oval skylight fitted with amber glass; silhouetted against its leaded rims are outlined flying birds.

'' Hark, hark ! The lark at heaven's gate sings ! " I read beneath the margins when I looked up to find the sunlight. I knew that I ought to feel like an impertinent intruder but I just couldn't! And I defy any one to go up those wonderful circling stairs and not smile ! For at the head of each flight of steps is a recessed niche such as used to be built to hold statuary and in the one near the sec- ond floor is a flat vase filled with flowers — little saffron rosebuds the day I passed by — with an ever so discreet card engraved in sizable old Eng- lish script that hinted:

** One's for you.*'

I was still sniffing at my buttonhole when I reached the second niche. There was a black varnished wicker tray heaped with fruit and a Brittany platter filled with raison cookies.

*' Aren't you hungry? " the card above them sug- gested. I nibbled an apricot all the way up the third flight and almost laughed aloud when I reached the top, though of course I was expecting something. There's a yellow glazed vase there,

((

For pits and stones Or skins and bones "

6 PROLOGUE

and above it in the back of the niche through a mar- ble dolphin's mouth cold water trickles into a bronze holder with a basket of cups beside it.

*' Thirsty? " asks the dolphin.

** Dulcie Dierckx " I read on the Sculptor Girl's doorplate. It took me a full minute to get the courage to tap her gargoyle knocker because I was so awestricken at remembering that she was the girl who won the Ambrose Medal and the Pendleton Prize and goodness only knows how much other loot and glory.

The door jerked open to let me peer into the clean- est, barest skylit spot, — with flat creamy walls and a little old fireplace with a Peggoty grate just like the pictures in *' David Copperfield. " And a trig young person who didn't look a bit like an artist, be- cause she was so neatly belted and so smoothly coiffed, waved a clayey thumb tip toward a bench by the fire.

*' Sit down and get your breath," she suggested chirkily, ** then you won't feel quite so dum- foundered — "

An overwhelming sense of my colossal cheekiness made me stammer.

** Do — do you h-happen to know — " I burst forth desperately, ** if there's really any such person as a — a Miss Day?"

*' Does that fire look real ? "

PROLOGUE 7

I nodded.

** Well, then put another stick on that fire and hang the kettle on the hob — " she was washing the clay from her hands in an old brass basin. ** Don't get peeved with me because I'm grouchy and bossy , — '' she flung over her shoulder at me. ^' I al- ways start off badly when Tm tired and that fool question always makes me just darned tireder! "

She reached for a fat brown teapot and dumped in tea-leaves recklessly. '' I'll be decenter directly I'm fed. I'm a beast just before tea — you won't find me half bad half an hour from now — "

We were both silent while the water boiled. She shoved her table nearer the fire, so near that I found myself looking down at the writing things that were arranged so primly at one end. There was an ink bottle on a gray blotter, a pewter tray for pens and a queer shaped lump of bronze, a paper weight I supposed. I wouldn't have been human if I could have kept my fingers off that bit of metal. I pretended to pick it up accidentally but I did it as guiltily as a child touches something forbidden. She didn't say a word, just watched me mischievously while she arranged the tea cups on the other end of the table. Presently she lighted a tiny temple lamp, melted a dab of sealing wax in its wavering blue flames — rose-colored wax it was — and it splashed out on the gray blotter like molten fire.

8 PROLOGUE

She took the bit of bronze from my fingers and pressed it firmly on the wax.

'' It's a mouth — '' I murmured. '' It's lips — "

'* It's her kiss," she answered me. ^' That's the most beautiful and the most difficult thing I ever made. It's Felicia Day's letter seal."

'* Then she really is a real person — " I stam- mered fatuously.

*' Real? " The girl's low voice lifted itself bel- ligerently. '* What do you think she is? Imita- tion ? Why, she's the one REAL thing in this whole sham world! I guess youVe never met anybody who knew her or you wouldn't keep gulping out idiotic things like that! I guess if you ever talked with her even a minute you'd understand how real she is. She has the crispest — the sincerest way of speaking. Though of course it's not a bit like other people's ways. She probably doesn't talk like any- body you've ever listened to. Not like anybody I've ever heard of anyway." The girl's eyes were glowing. ** Are you musical?" she demanded. *' Because I need a musical word to tell you how she talks. She talks ruhato. Her short words drawl ever so long and her long ones hurry so's to let her make up for the stolen time. And she has a sort of trace of accent like — well, it's not like anything ex- cept herself really. You see, her mother wasn't French but she was brought up with French people

PROLOGUE 9

and Felice says * evaire ' and * nevaire ' and uses funny little Frenchy phrases she heard her mother use though she doesn't really talk French at all. xVnd she has a bossy v/ay of speaking, kind of — well, humbly bossing, if you can get me. Talks like a Lady Pied Piper and sweeps you along with her just about six minutes after she's begun coaxing you to do whatever she's decided is the best thing for you to do. Believe me, I know she does it ! Because I was one of the first ones she swept along! " The girl's words were tumbling so fast now that I could hardly follow.

'' Did you ever find yourself in heaps of trouble? Too much trouble to stand? Did you? I v/as that way the day she opened my door. It made me per- fectly furious to have her open my door. And she looked so little and so old and so frumpy — she'd been sewing all day for my beastly step-aunt and Pd been trying all day to get the courage to — to — " the girl's tears were streaming now and she didn't bother to wipe them away, she seemed ut- terly unashamed of them, '* to get rid of myself. And just the minute I got the cork out of the bottle that little old angel opened the door. She was so darned different from anybody Pd ever seen in all my life and she talked so differently from anybody Pd ever listened to, I — well, I sort of forgot wanting to die because I was curious to find

lo PROLOGUE

out where on earth she'd come from — or where on earth she was going to ! She had a funny little dog under her arm; she gave it to me to hold. And the next thing I knew she was inviting me to go home with her. She thought I might like this room, she said. She told me it was filled ' with-an-abun- dance - of - weeds - we - have - not - any - names - for — ^ Wasn't that an absolute corker? That was her way of describing the Italian family with too many brats that were living here. She'd got that apology for 'em out of her great-great-grandma's garden book! Can you beat it? She talks about everybody as if they belonged in a garden. She called me — " the girl's lips quivered, — '' a rosebush that had been pruned too much — roots cramped — she said — anyway she picked me up to transplant me! Marched me into the 'orrible, messy, noisy, smelly hutch that this house used to be, up all those eighty 'leven stairs, and she kept her chin in the air as though it was a royal palace she was taking me into ! She just kept saying,

**'Come! You'll love, love, love it! And you're going to be proud, proud, proud to lire here — '

** I was proud, all right," the girl's voice choked. ** I wouldn't have missed living here those next two months, not for all the marble that was ever quar- ried nor for all the glory that was Greece! That

PROLOGUE 1 1

first night we bath slept in this room — " she paused dramatically and threw open the door in the east wall to let me peer into the narrow hall room, " there — see — "

Ah ! that bare little room ! So tidy ! With faded discolored wall paper and a scrubbed pine floor! With its battered iron bed ! There's an old table by the one window with a child's silver mug and plate and spoon on it, each of them with a great bee carved upon it. That's all there is in that room save a low chair and a superb but shabby walnut bureau.

**She loved it so much that she wouldn't change it when she was building Octavia House over — "

'' Octavia House! " I cried. '' Why, that's that queer house where all the young geniuses live ! The one that the Peter Alden money built — "

** It's not a queer house ! " the girl defied me. '* It's — It's this house ! And you can't say Money built this house! Money couldn't have done it! Not all the money in the world, couldn't! It wasn't Money! It was — Pride! Not the sort of pride that goeth before ^^struction but that mightier pride that goeth before construction! No, no! " she mur- mured vehemently, ** it wasn't Money ! It was really almost done before the money came ! And she didn't just build the house over, she built all of us over. And built the whole world over for us all.

12 PROLOGUE

Just with her pride in us ! Just with the pride she made us feel in ourselves ! And do you know, we were all such self-centered idiots, that it wasn't until after she was gone that we grasped what she'd done with us? We didn't know the glory and the wonder of her until after she was gone — "

^' She's not— ?"

The Sculptor Girl answered my half-asked ques- tion almost ferociously.

*' Of course she's not dead! She is the alivest person in this whole world — aliver than you or I can ever be! And yet, — we've lost her. She isn't just ours any more. And when she was blessedly, absolutely just ours — we didn't appreciate her. You see, she was so frumpy and absurd and quiet we didn't think about her — we scarcely saw her. But oh — the minute when we did see her ! It came in a flash for me ! I just knew, all of a sudden, that she was perfectly beautiful — as beautiful as her own whistle — her lovely, lovely Mademoiselle Folly whistle — "

** Oh! Oh! " I gasped, '^ You can^t mean that she was — is — Mademoiselle Folly? '^

** Mean it? Didn't you know it? Didn't you ever hear her whistle? Oh, even now that she's gone it seems to me that I can still hear her whistling! And no matter what any one has said about it — they couldn't all of them, put together,

PROLOGUE 13

say half enough — not even if they all said things as gushy as the Poetry Girl — she said it was like water trickling in a moonlit fountain ! I only know it's like what I tried to put into my little Pandora — that it was like what Barrie was thinking when he let Peter Pan cry, * Fm Joy! Joy! Joy! ' — Even the Painter Boy, who has a silly pose that he hates music, used to hang around to hear her whistle — he pretended he was just looking at her so's he could paint her, but that didn't fool me — Listen, there's Nor' stumping up stairs now — he's awfully lame on these rainy days and that moody — "

** Do you mean Noralla ? The one who did ' The Spirit of Romance '? Does he live here? "

She nodded impishly.

'* And Thad, the cartoonist and Blythe Modder and — " she began reeling off a victorious list of young celebrities.

*^ And that one little dressmaker discovered you all? " I asked, quite awestricken, ** How could she? What sort of a wonder was she? How can you explain it? "

The girl swung her lithe self up on the table, clasped her narrow hands about her knees and smiled benignly down upon me. She seemed naively con- tent with herself, relaxed and quiet after her tem- pestuous storm of words.

** You can't explain it, you just accept it — just

14 PROLOGUE

as you accept sunshine and rain — you can't ex- plain any more than you can describe. And she's the sort of woman that all of us who dwell within this house will go on all the rest of our lives trying to describe and FU bet that not all of us put together can tell more'n half th^t there is to tell about her. Why, her very faults are different than other peo- ple's faults! She has a pippin of a temper and such stub-stub-stubborn ways! Don't you think Thad's cartoons of ' Temperamental Therese ' are peaches? Well, they are nothing but Felice in her illogical crotchety unfair minutes — Thad says the only way to explain such heavenly rudeness as Felicia's is to remember that she began being rude in 1817 — "

*' How old is she? " I fairly shouted, '* Oh, please get down to earth and tell me something definite about her! You're perfectly maddening! "

The girl jumped lightly to the floor and slipped across the room to swing the casement in the north wall and let me peer down into Felicia's garden. If you'll look on the back of your envelope you can see just how it was, just how the walls shut off the rectory yard.

" She's exactly twenty-seven," she sighed, *' the most perfect age to be! And if you were really going to tell her story you wouldn't have to go back all the way to 18 17, you'd begin it about — well, let me see — you'd begin it about 1897, I think,

PROLOGUE 15

and right down there in that wee little garden. And of course you'd begin it with her whistling. And you'd ask anybody you were trying to tell about her whether they'd ever heard Mademoiselle Folly whistle — "

Did you? For if you have, I'm sure you've never forgotten the droll way that Mademoiselle Folly stepped out upon a stage in her quaint green frock and made her frightened curtsy. Can you recall her low contralto drawl and her inevitable,

*'0h, my dears, I do so hope that you're going to be good at pretending! You all of you look as though you could pretend if you just started! So let's you and I pretend that — "

Oh, I do so hope that you, too, are going *' to be good at pretending " ! That you can make yourself pretend that its twenty years ago and that you're a nice invisible somebody standing down in a wee back yard of Felicia's. From the garden you can't see the river because the walls are too high. But now you're so close to them you see that they're crumbly brick walls almost covered with vines and that at prim intervals along their tops there are elaborate wrought-iron urns, each filled with a huge dusty cen- tury plant. And in the side wall toward the rec- tory yard of the church you can see an unused iron gate, its rusty lock and hinges matted through and through with ancient ivy. Pretend that it's moon-

i6 PROLOGUE

light and it's spring and that it's early evening in the year of our Lord 1897 and that over there by the gate is Felicia Day, about seven years old, peering through the gate into the rectory yard, laugh- ing softly as she always laughs on choir practise nights. There was a certain bald dyspeptic choir- master who was most irritable as he drilled his un- ruly boy choir and on warm evenings, when the oaken door under the heavy Gothic arches of the church was ajar, she could watch their garbed figures and wide opened mouths as they giggled over Gre- gorian chants under the swaying altar lights.

Once the tallest, naughtiest boy of all, the one with the cherubic *' soprano '' voice that was just threat- ening to break into piping uselessness, had climbed to the top of the wall and dropped his little black velvet cap at her feet.

** Get down from that wall ! " the choirmaster had shouted.

Though the boy had ducked from view as sud- denly as he had appeared he had managed to de- mand of the small person under the wall,

** Who are you, girl?''

She was holding the cap tightly while she an- swered,

** I don't know, 'zactly who I are — " when she heard the choirmaster shrieking,

** Dudley Hamiltl Come here at once I "

PROLOGUE 17

And though she watched every choir-practise night for ever so long she never caught another glimpse of the mischievous-eyed boy, a nasal-voiced woman sang in his stead and she never, never climbed walls.

But Felicia always waited patiently with the small black cap in her hands until a night when she sum- moned courage to call softly through the barred gate,

'^Dudley! Dudley Hamilt!"

A fat boy ran to her and jeered,

** He's expelled! He can't come back till he's a tenor ! "

So that's what you must pretend ! That you carl smile in the shadows of that moonlit garden, that you can smile at a dear little stupid who is waiting joyously for the time when Dudley Hamilt will come back a tenor!

CHAPTER I

IN THE BARRED GARDEN

SHE was a distinctly droll looking child at the age of seven, our little Felicia Day ! With straight black hair brushed smoothly back and bound with a *' circle comb/' with short-waistcd dresses that left her neck and arms bare. Her slender feet were encased in short white socks and low black slippers. And at her dear little feet was usually — Babiche.

Babiche was so old that she whined at the even- ing chill; she perpetually teased to be taken back to her comfortable cushion at the foot of her mistress's bed. She was really very amusing when she sat up on her haunches and begged to be carried. For she was so fat that she hated to walk and she was a very spoiled doggy, that wee spaniel! A sort of a dowa- ger queen of a doggy, a nice little old grandma lady of a dog.

The gentle yap-yap-yapping that could always be heard beyond the rear wall was from the throats of some score or more of her expensive great-great- great offspring who lived in the stable in tiny stalls with their pedigree cards tacked neatly under their elaborate kennel names.

19

20 LITTLE MISS BY-THE-DAY

It was a cross to Felice that she was not allowed to go through the small arched doorway at the back of the garden that led to the stable that opened on the narrow cobblestone *' Tradespersons' Street." The Major didn't approve of the manners of Zeb Smathers the kennel man, or Zeb's wife Marthy, though he knew there wasn't a pair with their pa- tience and skill to be found for miles around. All the same Felice adored the stable yard and would have dearly loved to climb the narrow stairs up to the low-ceilinged rooms above the stables where Marthy liked to sit.

Lean, grizzled old Marthy! There was usually a dog or two in her lap, either a sickly pup or a grieving-eyed mother dog whose babies had been taken away from her. Such tiny creatures, even the mother dogs — those little Blenheim spaniels ! Snub-nosed, round-headed with long silky flopping ears, soft curly coats and feathery tails. Felice liked the yellow and white ones, and always reached for them, but her grandfather coolly '^ weeded them out," as Zeb expressed it, because the Trenton ideal was a white dog marked with red.

Felicia knew when the dogs were going away. They always went the day after the Basket Man came with a pole tied full of oval gilded wicker hampers. Sometimes she was allowed to stand in the gateway and watch them have their farewell

IN THE BARRED GARDEN 21

bath, only of course she sniffed uncomfortably when Zeb let brown drops drip into the rinsing water from a fat bottle with a gay red skull and cross-bones on the label. '* Scarbolic " was what she understood it to be, she mustn't touch it or she'd '' go dead," what- ever that was. But she forgot all about the smell as she watched the fluffy doggies drying in the sunny stable yard while Marthy sang vociferously to cheer her own drooping spirits; the silly old woman never could bear the days the dogs went away.

And so Felice on her side of the gate could listen rapturously to the throaty drone in which Marthy asked the world

** What^s this dull town to me? Rob-in's not here — "

or warbled heavily

** Churry Ripe, Churrj^ Ripe, Who'll buy my churries — "

or wailed

" Where have you been, Billy Boy, Billy Boy? Where have you been, charming Billy?"

It almost made up for not being allowed to go out of the garden.

If Felice only could have been allowed to go around into the Tradespersons' Street just once ! I wish she could have gone — just once ! On one of

22 LITTLE MISS BY-THE-DAY

the days when the swinging sign, that was gilded and painted so beautifully, was hung outside to an- nounce

'* KING CHARLES AND BLENHEIM SPANIELS

For sale within."

I'm sure she would have loved the line of carriages waiting in the cobble-stoned alley when the fine ladies came to buy. I think she would have clapped her hands at the gay boxes of geraniums and the crisp white curtains in Marthy's shining windows over the stable door.

But she could only stay in the garden with the thin visagcd old French woman who taught her to read and to write and to embroider and to play upon an old lute and to curtsy and to dance. One thing she learned that the French woman did not teach her — to whistle! She remembers answering the sea-gulls who mewed outside in the harbor and the sparrows who twittered in the ivy and the tiny pair of love-birds who dwelt in a cage at her mother's bedroom window. She learned to whistle without distorting her lips because her grandfather had for- bidden her to whistle and if she held her mouth almost normal he couldn't tell when he looked out into the garden whether it was Felice or the birds who were twittering.

Her first memories of her mother were extremely

IN THE BARRED GARDEN 23

vague. She remembers she was pretty and smiling and that most of the time she lay in a '* sleighback '' bed and that in the morning she would say,

*' Go out into the garden and be happy/' and that at twilight she would say, *' You look as though you had been very happy in the garden — ''

Sometimes Maman wasn't awake when Felicia came in from her long day in the garden. And the little girl always knew if her mother's door were closed that she must tiptoe softly so as not to disturb her. There was a reward for being quiet. In the niche of the stairway Felice would find a good-night gift — sometimes a cooky in a small basket or an apple or a flower, — something to make a little girl smile even if her mother was too tired or too ill to say good-night. She never clambered past the other niches that she didn't whimsically wish there was a Maman on every floor to leave something out- side for her. So after a time the canny child began leaving things for herself, tucked slyly back where the housemaids wouldn't find them. She used to hide her silver mug with water at the very top stair because she was so thirsty from the climb.

She was always happy in Maman's room and in the garden but she had many unhappy times in that nursery. It was at the very top of the back of the house. From the barred windows under the carved brownstone copings she could peer out at the ships

24 LITTLE MISS BY-THE-DAY

in the harbor and the shining green of Battery Park. The nursery had a fireplace just opposite the door that connected with the tiny room in which the old French woman slept. Both these rooms had been decorated with a landscape paper peopled with Wat- teau shepherds and shepherdesses and oft-repeated methodical groups of lambs. On the cold morn- ings she was bathed beside the fire — which she very much hated — and once when she was especially angry at the sharp dash of the bath sponge against her thin shoulders she clutched at the flabby drip- ping thing with all her might and sent it hurtling through the doorway where it splashed against the side wall of the tiny room and smudged out the flock of a simpering shepherdess. And instead of being sorry that she had obliterated the paper lambs she remembers shaking her fist at the discolored spot and shrieking ** Nevaire come back, nevaire!"

Mademoiselle D'Ormy made her tell Maman. Mademoiselle's disapproval made it seem an admir- able crime until Maman said ever so gently,

** Fm sorry you were unhappy ! "

'' / was happy /^ persisted Felicia, ** I was proud, proud, proud when I threw it! ''

** But you made Mademoiselle unhappy and you've made me unhappy — and you can't be truly happy, Felicia, when youVe making some one else un- happy — "

IN THE BARRED GARDEN 25

Felicia discovered that she couldn't. Not with ' Maman's gentle eyes looking into hers, so she threw herself on her knees and kissed her moth- er's hand. Just as she had seen her grandfather kiss it.

** Let's pretend! " she whispered, ** Let's pretend I didn't do it! Now let's pretend I'm Grandy! "

Pretending she was her Grandfather Trenton was one of their most delicious games. She would tap on the door, delicately, and ask in mincing imita- tion of the French woman,

** Madame, will you see ze Major? " Then, with great dignity she would advance to the bedside.

**Ah! Octavia!" she would say, eloquently, ** How charming you look to-day! "

For that was what Grandy always said when he came into the room to see Maman.

You'd have liked Major Trenton. You'd have liked .him a lot. But you could have liked him more if he'd been a little kinder to Felice. For by one of those strange, unexplained twists of hu- man nature this fine gentleman, who was so tol- erant with his uncouth servants and so admirably gentle with his wee dogs, was unconsciously cruel to the small grand-daughter who so adored him. She adored his immaculate neatness, the ruddy pinkness of his skin; she loved his wavy white hair and the deep sparkle of his dark eyes. She saw nothing

26 LITTLE MISS BY-THE-DAY

droll about the peaked felt hat and long black coat that he persisted in wearing, or about the ruffled shirt, with its absurd flaring collar and black satin stock. She even loved the empty coat sleeve pinned inside his breast pocket. She thought him the most beau- tiful human in the whole world. She lived in con- stant dread of what Grandy would or w^ould not be pleased to have her do. And though she was unaware of it, her everyday behavior was exactly what that silent man had so ordered. She did not know there was a God because the Major was an atheist — w^ho out-Tngersolled Robert G. in the vio- lence of his denial of deity. She did not know there was a world of reality outside the garden because he did not choose to have her mingle with that world. She was not taught French because he vowed he hated France and the French and all their ways. She was taught to curtsy and to dance because it pleased him to have a woman walk well and he believed dancing kept the figure supple. She was taught needlework because he thought it seemly for a woman to sew and he liked the line of the head and neck bent over an embroidery frame. She was taught to knit because he remembered that his mother had told him that delicate finger tips were daintily polished by an hour's knitting a day. He was — though he wouldn't have admitted it — proud of her slender hands — they looked exactly as his wife's

IN THE BARRED GARDEN 27

had looked. It was the only trait she had inherited from that particular ancestor and he had been in- ordinately vain of his wife's hands. Mademoiselle had been ordered never to let the child '^spread her hand by opening door knobs or touching the fire- stones — or — er — any clumsy thing < — " and it was droll to see the 'little girl, digging in her bit of garden with those lovely hands incased in long flopping cotton gloves — not to forget the broad sun- bonnet that shaded her earnest little face. In short, he was jealous of her complexion and her manners — But beyond that and the desire that she absolutely efface herself, he did not concern himself with his granddaughter.

It was really her mother's gentle tact that fos- tered love for the stern old man. While Felice was still young, Octavia began to teach her child pride of race. The pretty invalid was pathetically eager to have Felice impressed with the dignity of Major Trenton's family.

*' If you look over the dining-room fireplace you can see how fine his father was — "

So the child stared up the stately panelled wall at the gloomy old portrait of Judge Trenton with his much curled wig and black satin gown and the stiff scroll of vellum with fat be-ribboned seals attached and asked naively,

** If your father was a judge-man why aren^t we

28 LITTLE MISS BY-THE-DAY

judge-mens? '' Grandy laughed his short, hard laugh.

'' Oh, because weVe gone straight to the dogs — and very small bow-wows at that — '*

It was about this time that Octavia began to teach Felice to play chess. The child hated it. It must have taken a sort of magnificent patience to teach her. For a long time no one save Mademoiselle D'Ormy had known what a struggle it meant for that gay little invalid to make herself lovely for that afternoon hour over the chess board. Yet, when the Major entered he would always find his daughter smiHng from her heap of gay rose-colored cush- ions, her thin hair curled prettily under her lace cap and her hand extended for his courteous kiss. They were almost shyly formal with each other, those two, while Mademoiselle D'Ormy screwed the tilt table into place and brought the ebony box of carved chess men. It was leaning forward to move the men that took so much strength. Octavia was too proud to admit how weak she was growing. So she coaxed her small daughter,

** It will be a little stupid at first, Cherie, but we will try to make it go — and think what fun it will be that day when we tell the Major, * It is Felice and not stupid old Octavia who is going to play with you.' First you shall learn where to move the pieces and how to tell me what Grandy has moved — then.

IN THE BARRED GARDEN 29

we shaH tie a handkerchief over my eyes — as we do when you and I play hide the thimble — my hands shall not touch the men at all. I shall say ' Pawn to Queen's Rook's square ' and you shall put this little man here — this is the Queen's Rook's square — " It must have been the oddest game in the world, really, between that stern old man and the blindfolded invalid and the grave little girl who was learning to play. Of course it was easier for Oc- tavia — she didn't have to move her hands or keep her eyes open. She could lie lower on the pillows — she smiled — a wavering smile when her father's tri- umphant *' Check! " would ring out.

''Alas, Felice! " she would murmur gaily, '* are we not stupid! Together we can't checkmate him — " They talked a great deal about chess. And how you can't expect to do so much with pawns and how you mustn't mind if you lose them. But how carefully you must guard the queen — or else you'll lose your king — and how if " You just learn a little day by day soon you'll have a gambit," and how '' even if you don't care much about doing the silly game, you like it because you know that it gives Grandy much happiness."

It was in those days that Felice learned that not only must she keep very happy, herself but she must keep other people happy.

'' It's not easy," Octavia assured her, '* but it's

30 LITTLE MISS BY-THE-DAY

rather amusing. It's a game too. You see some one who is tired or cross or worried and you think

* This isn't pleasant for him or for me ! ' Then you think of something that may distract the tiredness or the worry — maybe you play softly on the lute — maybe you suggest chess — maybe you tell something very droll that happened in the garden or the ken- nel — he doesn't suspect why you're telling him, at first he scarcely seems to hear you and then — when he does stop thinking about the unpleasantness — he smiles ! — Watch Grandfather when he says

* Check! ' and you' will see what I mean — "