attending to the sick cow, so you will likely have time,” answered Felicity.
Felix and I couldn’t keep our eyes off her. Crimson-cheeked, shining-eyed from her haste, her face was like a rose of youth. But when the Story Girl spoke, we forgot to look at Felicity.
“About ten years after Grandfather and Grandmother King were married, a young man came to visit them. He was a distant relative of grandmother’s and he was a Poet. He was just beginning to be famous. He was VERY famous afterward. He came into the orchard to write a poem, and he fell asleep with his head on a bench that used to be under grandfather’s tree. Then Great-Aunt Edith came into the orchard. She was not a Great-Aunt then, of course. She was only eighteen, with red lips and black, black hair and eyes. They say she was always full of mischief. She had been away and had just come home, and she didn’t know about the Poet. But when she saw him, sleeping there, she thought he was a cousin they had been expecting from Scotland. And she tiptoed up—so—and bent over—so—and kissed his cheek. Then he opened his big blue eyes and looked up into Edith’s face. She blushed as red as a rose, for she knew she had done a dreadful thing. This could not be her cousin from Scotland. She knew, for he had written so to her, that he had eyes as black as her own. Edith ran away and hid; and of course she felt still worse when she found out that he was a famous poet. But he wrote one of his most beautiful poems on it afterwards and sent it to her—and it was published in one of his books.”
We had SEEN it all—the sleeping genius—the roguish, red-lipped girl—the kiss dropped as lightly as a rose-petal on the sunburned cheek.
“They should have got married,” said Felix.
“Well, in a book they would have, but you see this was in real life,” said the Story Girl. “We sometimes act the story out. I like it when Peter plays the poet. I don’t like it when Dan is the poet because he is so freckled and screws his eyes up so tight. But you can hardly ever coax Peter to be the poet—except when Felicity is Edith—and Dan is so obliging that way.”
“What is Peter like?” I asked.
“Peter is splendid. His mother lives on the Markdale road and washes for a living. Peter’s father ran away and left them when Peter was only three years old. He has never come back, and they don’t know whether he is alive or dead. Isn’t that a nice way to behave to your family? Peter has worked for his board ever since he was six. Uncle Roger sends him to school, and pays him wages in summer. We all like Peter, except Felicity.”
“I like Peter well enough in his place,” said Felicity primly, “but you make far too much of him, mother says. He is only a hired boy, and he hasn’t been well brought up, and hasn’t much education. I don’t think you should make such an equal of him as you do.”
Laughter rippled over the Story Girl’s face as shadow waves go over ripe wheat before a wind.
“Peter is a real gentleman, and he is more interesting than YOU could ever be, if you were brought up and educated for a hundred years,” she said.
“He can hardly write,” said Felicity.
“William the Conqueror couldn’t write at all,” said the Story Girl crushingly.
“He never goes to church, and he never says his prayers,” retorted Felicity, uncrushed.
“I do, too,” said Peter himself, suddenly appearing through a little gap in the hedge. “I say my prayers sometimes.”
This Peter was a slim, shapely fellow, with laughing black eyes and thick black curls. Early in the season as it was, he was barefooted. His attire consisted of a faded, gingham shirt and a scanty pair of corduroy knickerbockers; but he wore it with such an unconscious air of purple and fine linen that he seemed to be much better dressed than he really was.
“You don’t pray very often,” insisted Felicity.
“Well, God will be all the more likely to listen to me if I don’t pester Him all the time,” argued Peter.
This was rank heresy to Felicity, but the Story Girl looked as if she thought there might be something in it.
“You NEVER go to church, anyhow,” continued Felicity, determined not to be argued down.
“Well, I ain’t going to church till I’ve made up my mind whether I’m going to be a Methodist or a Presbyterian. Aunt Jane was a Methodist. My mother ain’t much of anything but I mean to be something. It’s more respectable to be a Methodist or a Presbyterian, or SOMETHING, than not to be anything. When I’ve settled what I’m to be I’m going to church same as you.”
“That’s not the same as being BORN something,” said Felicity loftily.
“I think it’s a good deal better to pick your own religion than have to take it just because it was what your folks had,” retorted Peter.
“Now, never mind quarrelling,” said Cecily. “You leave Peter alone, Felicity. Peter, this is Beverley King, and this is Felix. And we’re all going to be good friends and have a lovely summer together. Think of the games we can have! But if you go squabbling you’ll spoil it all. Peter, what are you going to do to-day?”
“Harrow the wood field and dig your Aunt Olivia’s flower beds.”
“Aunt Olivia and I planted sweet peas yesterday,” said the Story Girl, “and I planted a little bed of my own. I am NOT going to dig them up this year to see if they have sprouted. It is bad for them. I shall try to cultivate patience, no matter how long they are coming up.”
“I am going to help mother plant the vegetable garden to-day,” said Felicity.
“Oh, I never like the vegetable garden,” said the Story Girl. “Except when I am hungry. Then I DO like to go and look at the nice little rows of onions and beets. But I love a flower garden. I think I could be always good if I lived in a garden all the time.”
“Adam and Eve lived in a garden all the time,” said Felicity, “and THEY were far from being always good.”
“They mightn’t have kept good as long as they did if they hadn’t lived in a garden,” said the Story Girl.
We were now summoned to breakfast. Peter and the Story Girl slipped away through the gap, followed by Paddy, and the rest of us walked up the orchard to the house.
“Well, what do you think of the Story Girl?” asked Felicity.
“She’s just fine,” said Felix, enthusiastically. “I never heard anything like her to tell stories.”
“She can’t cook,” said Felicity, “and she hasn’t a good complexion. Mind you, she says she’s going to be an actress when she grows up. Isn’t that dreadful?”
We didn’t exactly see why.
“Oh, because actresses are always wicked people,” said Felicity in a shocked tone. “But I daresay the Story Girl will go and be one just as soon as she can. Her father will back her up in it. He is an artist, you know.”
Evidently Felicity thought artists and actresses and all such poor trash were members one of another.
“Aunt Olivia says the Story Girl is fascinating,” said Cecily.
