"That will do," cut in mother severely. "You've taken advantage of me, Missy. And don't let me hear evening party from you again this summer!"

The import of this dreadful dictum did not penetrate fully to Missy's consciousness. She was too confused in her emotions, just then, to think clearly of anything.

"Go up to bed," said mother.

"May I put my flowers in water first?"

"Yes, but be quick about it."

Missy would have liked to carry the flowers up to her own room, to sleep there beside her while she slept, but mother wouldn't understand and there would be questions which she didn't know how to answer.

Mother was offended with her. Dimly she felt unhappy about that, but she was too happy to be definitely unhappy. Anyway, mother followed to unfasten her dress, to help take down her hair, to plait the mouse-coloured braids. She wanted to be alone, yet she liked the touch of mother's hands, unusually gentle and tender. Why was mother gentle and tender with her when she was offended?

At last mother kissed her good night, and she was alone in her little bed. It was hard to get to sleep. What an eventful party it had been!

Since supper time she seemed to have lived years and years. She had been a success even though Raymond Bonner had said--that. Anyway, Jim was a better dancer than Raymond, and handsomer and nicer--besides the uniform. He was more poetical too--much more. What was it he had said about liking her?... better dancer than any other... Funny she should feel so happy after Raymond... Maybe she was just a vain, inconstant, coquettish...

She strove to focus on the possibility of her frailty. She turned her face to the window. Through the lace curtains shone the moonlight, the gleaming path along which she had so often flown out to be a fairy. But to-night she didn't wish to be a fairy; just to be herself...

The moonlight flowed in and engulfed her, a great, eternal, golden-white mystery. And its mystery became her mystery. She was the mystery of the moon, of the universe, of Life. And the tune in her heart, which could take on so many bewildering variations, became the Chant of Mystery.

How interesting, how tremendously, ineffably interesting was Life! She slept.

CHAPTER IV. MISSY TACKLES ROMANCE

Melissa was out in the summerhouse, reading; now and then lifting her eyes from the big book on her lap to watch the baby at play. With a pail of sand, a broken lead-pencil and several bits of twig, the baby had concocted an engrossing game. Melissa smiled indulgently at his absurd absorption; while the baby, looking up, smiled back as one who would say: "What a stupid game reading is to waste your time with!"

For the standpoint of three-years-old is quite different from that of fourteen-going-on-fifteen. Missy now felt almost grown-up; it had been eons since SHE was a baby, and three; even thirteen lay back across a chasm so wide her thoughts rarely tried to bridge it. Besides, her thoughts were kept too busy with the present. Every day the world was presenting itself as a more bewitching place. Cherryvale had always been a thrilling place to live in; but this was the summer which, surely, would ever stand out in italics in her mind. For, this summer, she had come really to know Romance.

Her more intimate acquaintance with this enchanting phenomenon had begun in May, the last month of school, when she learned that Miss Smith, her Algebra teacher, received a letter every day from an army officer. An army officer!--and a letter every day! And she knew Miss Smith very well, indeed! Ecstasy! Miss Smith, who looked too pretty to know so much about Algebra, made an adorable heroine of Romance.

But she was not more adorable-looking than Aunt Isabel. Aunt Isabel was Uncle Charlie's wife, and lived in Pleasanton; Missy was going to Pleasanton in just three days, now, and every time she thought of the visit, she felt delicious little tremors of antic.i.p.ation. What an experience that would be! For father and mother and grandpa and grandma and all the other family grown-ups admitted that Uncle Charlie's marriage to Aunt Isabel was romantic. Uncle Charlie had been forty-three--very, very old, even older than father--and a "confirmed bachelor" when, a year ago last summer, he had married Aunt Isabel. Aunt Isabel was much younger, only twenty; that was what made the marriage romantic.

Like Miss Smith, Aunt Isabel had big violet eyes and curly golden hair.

Most heroines seemed to be like that. The reflection saddened Missy.

Her own eyes were grey instead of violet, her hair straight and mouse-coloured instead of wavy and golden.

Even La Beale Isoud was a blonde, and La Beale Isoud, as she had recently discovered, was one of the Romantic Queens of all time. She knew this fact on the authority of grandpa, who was enormously wise.

Grandpa said that the beauteous lady was a heroine in all languages, and her name was spelled Iseult, and Yseult, and Isolde, and other queer ways; but in "The Romance of King Arthur" it was spelled La Beale Isoud.

"The Romance of King Arthur" was a fascinating book, and Missy was amazed that, up to this very summer, she had pa.s.sed by the rather ponderous volume, which was kept on the top shelf of the "secretary," as uninteresting-looking. Uninteresting!

It was "The Romance of King Arthur" that, this July afternoon, lay open on Missy's lap while she minded the baby in the summerhouse. Already she knew by heart its "deep" and complicated story, and, now, she was re-reading the part which told of Sir Tristram de Liones and his ill-fated love for La Beale Isoud. It was all very sad, yet very beautiful.

Sir Tristram was a "worshipful knight" and a "harper pa.s.sing all other."

He got wounded, and his uncle, King Mark, "let purvey a fair vessel, well victualled," and sent him to Ireland to be healed. There the Irish King's daughter, La Beale Isoud, "the fairest maid and lady in the world," nursed him back to health, while Sir Tristram "learned her to harp."

That last was an odd expression. In Cherryvale it would be considered bad grammar; but, evidently, grammar rules were different in olden times. The unusual phraseology of the whole narrative fascinated Missy; even when you could hardly understand it, it was--inspiring. Yes, that was the word. In inspiring! That was because it was the true language of Romance. The language of Love... Missy's thoughts drifted off to ponder the kind of language the army officer used to Miss Smith; Uncle Charlie to Aunt Isabel...

She came back to the tale of La Beale Isoud.

Alas! true love must ever suffer at the hands of might. For the harper's uncle, old King Mark himself, decided to marry La Beale Isoud; and he ordered poor Sir Tristram personally to escort her from Ireland. And Isoud's mother entrusted to two servants a magical drink which they should give Isoud and King Mark on their wedding-day, so that the married pair "either should love the other the days of their life."

But, Tristram and La Beale Isoud found that love-drink! Breathing quickly, Missy read the fateful part:

"It happened so that they were thirsty, and it seemed by the colour and the taste that it was a n.o.ble wine. When Sir Tristram took the flasket in his hand, and said, 'Madam Isoud, here is the best drink that ever ye drunk, that Dame Braguaine, your maiden, and Gouvernail, my servant, have kept for themselves.' Then they laughed (laughed--think of it!) and made good cheer, and either drank to other freely. And they thought never drink that ever they drank was so sweet nor so good. But by that drink was in their bodies, they loved either other so well that never their love departed for weal neither for woe." (Think of that, too!)

Missy gazed at the accompanying ill.u.s.tration: La Beale Isoud slenderly tall in her straight girdled gown of grey-green velvet, head thrown back so that her filleted golden hair brushed her shoulders, violet eyes half-closed, and an "antique"-looking metal goblet clasped in her two slim hands; and Sir Tristram so imperiously dark and handsome in his crimson, fur-trimmed doublet, his two hands stretched out and gripping her two shoulders, his black eyes burning as if to look through her closed lids. What a tremendous situation! Love that never would depart for weal neither for woe!

Missy sighed. For she had read and re-read what was the fullness of their woe. And she couldn't help hating King Mark, even if he was Isoud's lawful lord, because he proved himself such a recreant and false traitor to true love. Of course, he WAS Isoud's husband; and Missy lived in Cherryvale, where conventions were not complicated and were strictly adhered to; else scandal was the result. But she told herself that this situation was different because it was an unusual kind of love. They couldn't help themselves. It wasn't their fault. It was the love-drink that did it. Besides, it happened in the Middle Ages...

Suddenly her reverie was blasted by a compelling disaster. The baby, left to his own devices, had stuck a twig into his eye, and was uttering loud cries for attention. Missy remorsefully hurried over and kissed his hurt. As if healed thereby, the baby abruptly ceased crying; even sent her a little wavering smile. Missy gazed at him and pondered: why do babies cry over their tiny troubles, and so often laugh over their bigger ones? She felt an immense yearning over babies--over all things inexplicable.

That evening after supper, grandpa and grandma came over for a little while. They all sat out on the porch and chatted. It was very beautiful out on the porch,--greying twilight, and young little stars just coming into being, all aquiver as if frightened.

The talk turned to Missy's imminent visit.

"Aren't you afraid you'll get homesick?" asked grandma.

It was Missy's first visit away from Cherryvale without her mother. A year ago she would have dreaded the separation, but now she was almost grown-up. Besides, this very summer, in Cherryvale, she had seen how for some reason, a visiting girl seems to excite more attention than does a mere home girl. Missy realized that, of course, she wasn't so "fashionable" as was the sophisticated Miss Slade from Macon City who had so agitated Cherryvale, yet she was pleased to try the experience for herself. Moreover, the visit was to be at Uncle Charlie's!

"Oh, no," answered Missy. "Not with Uncle Charlie and Aunt Isabel. She's so pretty and wears such pretty clothes--remember that grey silk dress with grey-topped shoes exactly to match?"

"I think she has shoes to match everything, even her wrappers," said grandma rather drily. "Isabel's very extravagant."

"Extravagance becomes a virtue when Isabel wears the clothes," commented grandpa. Grandpa often said "deep" things like that, which were hard to understand exactly.

"She shouldn't squander Charlie's money," insisted grandma.

"Charlie doesn't seem to mind it," put in mother in her gentle way.

"He's as pleased as Punch buying her pretty things."

"Yes--poor Charlie!" agreed grandma. "And there's another thing: Isabel's always been used to so much attention, I hope she won't give poor Charlie anxiety."

Why did grandma keep calling him "poor" Charlie? Missy had always understood that Uncle Charlie wasn't poor at all; he owned the biggest "general store" in Pleasanton and was, in fact, the "best-fixed" of the whole Merriam family.

But, save for fragments, she soon lost the drift of the family discussion. She was absorbed in her own trend of thoughts. At Uncle Charlie's she was sure of encountering Romance. Living-and-breathing Romance. And only two days more! How could she wait?

But the two days flew by in a flurry of mending, and running ribbons, and polishing all her shoes and wearing old dresses to keep her good ones clean, and, finally, packing. It was all so exciting that only at the last minute just before the trunk was shut, did she remember to tuck in "The Romance of King Arthur."

At the depot in Pleasanton, Aunt Isabel alone met her; Uncle Charlie was "indisposed." Missy was sorry to hear that. For she had liked Uncle Charlie even before he had become Romantic. He was big and silent like father and grandpa and you had a feeling that, like them, he understood you more than did most grown-ups.

She liked Aunt Isabel, too; she couldn't have helped that, because Aunt Isabel was so radiantly beautiful. Missy loved all beautiful things. She loved the heavenly colour of sunlight through the stained-gla.s.s windows at church; the unquenchable blaze of her nasturtium bed under a blanket of grey mist; the corner street-lamp reflecting on the wet sidewalk; the smell of clean, sweet linen sheets; the sound of the bra.s.s band practicing at night, blaring but unspeakably sad through the distance; the divine mystery of faint-tinted rainbows; trees in moonlight turned into great drifts of fairy-white blossoms.

And she loved shining ripples of golden hair; and great blue eyes that laughed in a sidewise glance and then turned softly pensive in a second; and a sweet high voice now vivacious and now falling into hushed cadences; and delicate white hands always restlessly fluttering; and, a drifting, elusive fragrance, as of wind-swept petals...

All of which meant that she loved Aunt Isabel very much; especially in the frilly, pastel-flowered organdy she was wearing to-day--an "extravagant" dress, doubtless, but lovely enough to justify that.