Little Miss By-The-Day

ed smoothly back and bound with a "circle comb," with short-waisted dresses that left her neck and arms bare. Her sl

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

ats of some score or more of her expensive great-great-great offspring who lived in the stab

ons' 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 patience and skill to be found fo

eatures, 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 ye

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

could listen rapturously to the throat

his dull

's not

bled h

Ripe, Ch

uy my ch

wai

u been, Billy

ou been, cha

not being allowed to

just once! I wish she could have gone-just once! On one of the days when the swin

ES AND BLEN

ale w

n the fine ladies came to buy. I think she would have clapped her hands at the gay boxes o

ot 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

mbers she was pretty and smiling and that most of the time she

hat at twilight she would say, "You look as

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

room in which the old French woman slept. Both these rooms had been decorated with a landscape paper peopled with Watteau shepherds and shepherdesses and oft-repeated methodical groups of lambs. On the cold mornings 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 s

emoiselle's disapproval made it seem an admi

y you wer

elicia, "I was proud, prou

ade me unhappy-and you can't be truly happy, Fe

s looking into hers, so she threw herself on her knees and kissed

"Let's pretend I didn't do it!

eir most delicious games. She would tap on the door, del

?" Then, with great dignity sh

say, eloquently, "How c

y always said when he c

ma

at Grandy would or would 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-who out-Ingersolled Robert G. in the violence 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 mothe

lice was still young, Octavia began to teach her child pride of race. The pretty invalid

g-room fireplace you can se

t of Judge Trenton with his much curled wig and black satin gown and the s

why aren't we judge-mens?" Grand

raight to the dogs-and ver

y for that afternoon hour over the chess board. Yet, when the Major entered he would always find his daughter smiling from her heap of gay rose-colored cushions, her thin hair curled prettily under her lace cap and her hand extended for his courteous kiss. They were almost shyly formal wi

shall 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

ch 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 da

that not only must she keep very happy he

mething 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 kennel-he doesn't suspec

tters came. Then Grandfather disappeared into the gloomy depths of the library and from the garden Felice

nything that was my wife's! I do not approve of the manner whereby she obtained that income-if Octavia wishes it, that is a different matter-it can be kept for the child if Octavia chooses to look at the matter that way-but

d it nearly every time that Certain Legal Matters appeared, he always put the Majo

s on the days when th

d from behind the curtains at the rear emerged a little woman whose face looked like the walnuts that were served with grandpapa's wine, very disagreeable indeed. Felice always spoke of her as The Disagreeable Walnut. It was in this shop that she saw her first doll, a ridiculous fat affair constructed of a hank of cotton with shoe buttons for eyes and a red silk e

ormed them curtly and that was the way

rn as a sewing machine in the house and said that for her part she didn't see how people thought th

rs?" Felice asked her ea

been poor but they were

ndy in the garden and added eagerly,

iled

urtly, "that they were either conspi

dog hampers, down-stuffed oval affairs covered with heavy dull blue silk. The Wheezy sputtered that she couldn't see why "under th

occasions when she managed a few words with Zeb she d

g out the pedigree in French like he does makes f

d not the remotest idea in this world wha

white mantlepiece. Felice sat adoringly on a footstool at her feet and they talked a great deal about a time when Maman should not only sit in a chair but should walk. It seemed that Octavia hoped to take her daughter to a place she referred to rather vaguely as The House in the Woods. Octavia had lived in this house in the woods when she was a girl and she was very much worried about what might have happened to the garden

f a woman who mistrusts all lawyers-these d

rson was-it was not for nothing that Felice had been staring at the p

on who is talking wit

she looks like a man bu

ttle later and sent Mademoiselle back to his client by the fireside. He looked down a

-if-if your mother goes away and you're ever in trouble that you're to come to see me? Th

itor should arrive. Although she must have been eleven she was trembling with excitement, because he was h

ake it hard for t

you haven't-if there's anything you want

ed thoug

ight now that I want som

y and let him out through the stable gate talking excitably a

d or too ill to see such a vigorous person as Felice must have been. She merely remembers that there came a time when she was no longer asked to

l Maman I was happy

had ever seen and she clapped her hands and said "How q

ifficult time for them all; the Major was morose and sullen and Mademoiselle often had "little rains" in her eyes. She was not

lled with all sorts of fascinating trinkets; earrings and breastpins and droll bracelets of tarnished silver set with jade and coral-queer little letters folded in tr

whats" had satisfied, but Mademoiselle's abrupt, "I can't tell you-" "It does not concern you-" "Zat is not of consequence-" were teaching the child to scheme. She was perpe

gently at her mother's door and opened it and went in. And when she saw t

d gone to the House in the Woods? Why didn't you let me go

answer he

id you

se unless Maman were gone-so they've gone to the House in the Woods-to attend to the garden-with

ed tireder and more unhappy than in the days w

r words as he faced the

to the House in the

that must be attende

e d

f her eleven years. But at the door she paus

s with you. I can do three gambits. I tried them alone yes

d and kissed it as he had kissed her mother's. It was the first caress he had ever given her. She put the hand

in the garden-" she whispered,

er quarrel. It sometimes seemed to Octavia's unhappy daughter that

ving child, were all packed away in the storeroom back of the linen closet; the bits

e it!" Or most fearful cry of all, "Put that shawl back, Felicia! It

le's black silk apron. Gradually the miserly soul lock

lissful afternoon and rummaged joyously through dusty bandboxes and huge curved-top

renton, 8

crushed leather. And when she thrust them carelessly underneath she found the tiniest muslin ga

she frowned, "the thing made of string in the shop where we got the Wheezy-as

de, a slim, dusty, shining-eyed figure when the woman began berating her. The girl slid cunningly a

l for the furnace pipe. Felice moved toward it. She was not

d hear it tinkling, down, down, throug

that the infuriated li

li

ut instead she ran. She fled down the stairway, her angry breath coming

aman!" sh

where the Maj

" And down the stair came the t

served your wife like one slave! And for Miss Octavia I was like two slaves! Zis child has

s, the woman with her eyes snapping and t

one was terrifying, "you

are growing into a child-" And whatever else he said after Felice had fled to the garden doesn't matter. Yet two days later when Mademoiselle bade her farewell the two enemies flung themselves on e

oreroom. She never had to explain to the Major what had occasioned that last tempestuous quarrel but

er from the walnut bureau. For after Mademoiselle's departure the afternoon chess prolonge

the frock she'd worn when she had dined "with her family in France-" Mademoiselle had dressed Octavia for tha

e had said, "that is what the husband of Julie, Madame Rec

en she sat for the portrait. Sometimes she wore the lovely black lace shawl, sometimes the creamy white embroidered silk one, and always the delicate coral and silver jewelry. Yet she couldn't possibly have known fr

charming tod

f, the grim old stoic,

s came frequently in the evening and left Felicia to ponder over her embroidery frame or wander restlessly in the bit of ga

boxes, Marthy and Zeb and the housemaids were sorting and folding incessantly. And around them, wandered, starry-eyed, a useless young person who hug

you'll be happy to

believed she was going to find Octavia in the garden. Those long ago evasions that had silenced her little-girl questions

night of all, the night before

niture should go to storage and whether they should change the route and instead of going around the coast b

ing Octavia's adorable white lace shawl about her firm youn

rden-" Her grandfather nodded. She slipped through the French wind

rthy's curtains ever so gently and let the wistaria banners stream back and forth-if she shoved it carefully, that s

gentlemen! Boys! Kindly remember this is the last rehearsal, the final rehearsal! When the organist begins the choir should file in very slowly-the principals remain outside until the choi

rch the soloists moved easily toward her. One of them was disgracefully fat, he puffed as he mopped his brow, but the

Now I have done it-my ca

, fainter, the fat man had c

that stared up at her from the garden border. The wind stirred in the ivy. Felicia sighed. His h

ost one when I was a littl

r eyes now, he caught at the ru

l!" he m

! And her white, white throat and the tangle of old lace about it! He stared into her grave young eyes, he looked at that lovely young mouth of hers, that mouth that

s a star falls in the heavens. She lay in a little crumpled heap crushing the sweetness of the narcissi. She d

ness. After all you know, a sprained ankle is a s