Ah! who is this riding so fast through Main Street? The gallant young lover--

Again, reiterant and increasingly imperative, summons from the house slashed across her mood. Can't one's family ever appreciate the yearning for solitude? However, even amid the talkative circle round the supper-table, Missy felt uplifted and strangely remote.

"Why aren't you eating your supper, Missy? Just look at that wasted good meat!"

"Meat," though a good rhyme for "street," would not work well.

"Neat"--"fleet"--Ah! "Fleet!"

Immediately after supper, followed by the inquisitive Poppylinda, Missy took her poem out to the comparative solitude of the back porch steps.

It was very sweet and still out there, the sun sinking blood-red over the cherry trees. With no difficulty at all, she went on, inspired:

--Main Street?

The gallant young Doctor in his motor so fleet! So flashing his eye and so stately his form That the bride's sinking heart with delight did grow warm. But the poor craven bridegroom said never a word; And the parent so proud did champ in her woe.

The knight s.n.a.t.c.hed her swiftly into the Ford, And she smiled as he steered adown the Boulevard; Then away they did race until soon lost to view, And all knew 'twas best for these lovers so true. For where, tell me where, would have gone that bride's bliss? Who flouts at true love all true happiness must miss!

What matters the vain things of Earth, soon or late, If the heart of a loved one in anguish doth break?

When she came to the triumphant close, among the fragrant cherry blooms the birds were twittering their lullabies. She went in to say her own good night, the Poem, much erased and interlined, tucked in the front of her blouse together with ineffable sensations. But she was not, for all that, beyond a certain concern for material details. "Mother, may I do my hair up in kid-curlers?" she asked.

"Why, this is only Wednesday." Mother's tone connoted the fact that "waves," rippling artificially either side of Missy's "part" down to her two braids, achieved a decorative effect reserved for Sundays and special events. Then quickly, perhaps because she hadn't been altogether unaware of this last visitation of the Heavenly Muse, she added: "Well, I don't care. Do it up, if you want to."

Then, moved by some motive of her own, she followed Missy upstairs to do it up herself. These occasions of personal service were rare, these days, since Missy had grown big and efficient, and were therefore deeply cherished. But to-night Missy almost regretted her mother's unexpected ministration; for the paper in her blouse crackled at unwary gestures, and if mother should protract her stay throughout the undressing period, there might come an awkward call for explanations.

And mother, innocently, added one more element to her entangled burden of distress.

"We'll do it up all over your head, for the Wedding," she said, gently brushing the full length of the fine, silvery-brown strands. "And let it hang in loose curls."

At the conjectured vision, Missy's eyes began to sparkle.

"And I think a ribbon band the colour of your dress would be pretty,"

mother went on, parting off a section and wrapping it round a "curler."

A sudden remembrance clutched at Missy's ecstatic reply; the shine faded from her eyes. But mother, engrossed, didn't observe; more deeply she sank her unintentional barb. "No," she mused aloud, "a garland of little rosebuds would be better, I believe-tiny delicate little buds, tied with a pink bow."

At that, the prospective flower-girl, to have saved her life, could not have repressed the sigh which rose like a tidal wave from her overcharged heart. Mother caught the sigh, and looked at her anxiously.

"Don't you think it would look pretty?" she asked.

Missy nodded mutely. So complex were her emotions that, fearing for self-control, she was glad, just then, that the Baby cried.

As soon as mother had kissed her good night and left her, she pulled out the paper rustling importantly within her blouse, and laid it in the celluloid "treasure box" which sat on the high-boy. Then soberly she finished the operation on her hair, and undressed herself.

Before getting into bed, after her regular prayer was said, she stayed awhile on her knees and put the whole of her seething dilemma before G.o.d. "Dear G.o.d," she said, "you know how unhappy Miss Princess is and young Doc, too. Please make them both happy, G.o.d. And please help me not feel sorry about the Pink Dress. For I just can't help feeling sorry.

Please help us all, dear G.o.d, and I'll be such a good girl, G.o.d."

Perhaps it is the biggest gift in the world, to be able to pray. And, by prayer, is not meant the saying over of a formal code, but the simple, direct speaking with G.o.d. It is so simple in the doing, so marvellous in its reaction, that the strange thing is that it is not more generally practiced. But there is where the gift comes in: a supreme essence of spirit which must, if the prayer is to achieve its end, be first possessed-a thing possessed by all children not yet quite rid of the glamour of immortality and by some, older, who contrive to hold enough glamour to be as children throughout life. Some call this thing Faith, but there are other names just as good; and the essence lives on forever.

These reflections are not Missy's. She knelt there, without consciousness of any motive or a.n.a.lysis. She only knew she was telling it all to G.o.d. And presently, in her heart, in whispers fainter than the stir of the slumbering leaves outside, she heard His answer. G.o.d had heard; she knew it by the peace He laid upon her tumultuous heart.

Steeped in faith, she fell asleep. But not a dreamless sleep. Missy always dreamed, these nights: wonderful dreams--magical, splendid, sometimes vaguely terrifying, often remotely tied up with some event of the day, but always wonderful. And the last dream she dreamed, this eventful night, was marvellous indeed. For it was a replica of the one she had dreamed the night before.

It was an omen of divine portent. No one could have doubted it. Missy, waking from its subtle glamour to the full sunlight streaming across her pillow, hugged Poppylinda, crooned over her and, though preparing to sacrifice that golden something whose prospect had gilded her life, sang her way through the duties of her toilet.

That accomplished, she lifted out her Poem, and wrote at the bottom: "Your true friend, MELISSA M."

Then she tucked the two sheets in her blouse, and scrambled downstairs to be chided again for not eating her breakfast.

After the last spoonful, obligatory and arduous, had been disposed of, she loitered near the hall telephone until there was a clear field, then called Young Doc's number. What a relief to find he had not yet gone out! Could he stop by her house, pretty soon? Why, what was the matter--Doc's voice was alarmed--someone sick?

"No, but it's something very important, Doc."

Missy's manner was hurried and impressive.

"Won't it wait?"

"It's terribly important."

"What is it? Can't you tell me now, Missy?"

"No--it's a secret. And I've got to hurry up now and hang up the phone because it's a secret."

"I see. All right, I'll be along in about fifteen minutes. What do you want me to--"

"Stop by the summerhouse," she cut in nervously. "I'll be there."

It seemed a long time, but in reality was shorter than schedule, before Young Doc's car appeared up the side street. He brought it to a stop opposite the summerhouse, jumped out and approached the rendezvous.

Summoning all her courage, she held the Poem ready in her hand.

"Good morning, Missy," he sang out. "What's all the mystery?"

For answer Missy could only smile--a smile made wan by nervousness--and extend the two crumpled sheets of paper.

Young Doc took them curiously, smiled at the primly-lettered, downhill lines, and then narrowed his eyes to skimming absorption. A strange expression gathered upon his face as he read. Missy didn't know exactly what to make of his working muscles--whether he was pained or angry or amused. But she was entirely unprepared for the fervour with which, when he finished, he seized her by the shoulders and bounced her up and down.

"Did you make all this up?" he cried. "Or do you mean she really doesn't want to marry that bounder?"

"She really doesn't," answered Missy, not too engaged in steeling herself against his crunching of her shoulder bones to register the soubriquet, "bounder."

"Are you sure you didn't make most of it up?" Young Doc knew well Missy's strain of romanticism. But she strove to convince him that, for once, she was by way of being a realist.

"She despises him. She can't bear to go on with it. She can't stand it another hour. I heard her say so myself." Young Doc, crunching her shoulder bones worse than ever, breathed hard, but said nothing. Missy proffered bashfully:

"I think, maybe, she wants to marry you, Doc."

Young Doc then, just at the moment she couldn't have borne the vise a second longer, let go her shoulders, and smiled a smile which, for her, would have eased a splintered bone itself.