Part 4 (1/2)

What perfection the child expects of the mother! No human deviations!

Mrs. Procter sighed. How could she live out her child's exalted ideal of her! She looked helplessly at Suzanna. The eyes lifted to hers lacked the wonted expression of perfect belief, of pa.s.sionate admiration. That this first little daughter, so close to her heart fibers, should in any degree turn from her, pierced the mother. She put her arms about the unyielding small figure.

”Suzanna, little daughter,” she whispered. ”Mother is sometimes tired, but always, always she loves you.”

The response was immediate. With a little cry Suzanna pressed her lips to her mother's. All her reticence was gone. This mother who enfolded her stood once more the unwavering star that guided Suzanna's life.

”You see, little girl,” Mrs. Procter said after a few moments, ”mother sometimes has a great deal to think about--and baby was cross.”

”Oh, mother, dear, I'll help you,” cried Suzanna. ”I'll always be good to you and when I'm grown up I'll buy you silk dresses and pretty hats and take you to hear beautiful music.”

Later they went downstairs together. In the kitchen Maizie was amusing the baby as he sat in his high chair. She looked around as Suzanna entered: ”Are you going to see Drusilla now,” asked Maizie.

”Who's Drusilla?” asked Mrs. Procter with interest.

Now Suzanna had not told her mother of her new friend. She had wished to keep in character, and a princess, she felt, was rather secretive and aloof. But now the renewed closeness she felt to her mother opened her heart.

”Yesterday when I was a princess, living my very own first tucked-in day, I walked and walked, and at last came to a little house with a garden,” she said, ”and there was an old lady with no one to call her by her first name--and so I'm going to call her Drusilla.”

”Is she a little old lady with white hair, and curls on each side of her face?” asked Mrs. Procter.

”Yes,” said Suzanna.

”Why, she's Mr. Graham Woods Bartlett's mother, and she's a little--”

Mrs. Procter hesitated believing it wiser to leave her sentence unfinished.

”A little what, mother?” asked Suzanna anxiously.

”Oh, she has fancies,” evaded Mrs. Procter. ”For instance, there are times when she thinks herself a queen.”

”What was the word you were going to use, mother?” persisted Suzanna.

”Well, then, Suzanna, such a person is called a little strange.”

”Then I'm a little strange, too,” said Suzanna.

”But you're a child, Suzanna,” said Mrs. Procter, ”and Mrs. Bartlett is a very old lady.”

”Does that make the difference?” asked Suzanna. ”If it does, I can't understand why. I think that an old lady, especially if she's lonely and if she grieves for her king who went far away from her, has just as much right to have fancies as a little girl has.”

”Well, I don't know,” said Mrs. Procter, turning a soft look upon Suzanna.

Maizie, who had been standing near listening intently, now spoke: ”A girl I know had a grandfather who thought he was a cat and every once in awhile he meowed, and he liked to sit in the sun. He thought he was a nice, gentle, Maltese cat, and when he wasn't busy meowing he was awful sweet to the children, and played with them and took care of the little ones; but the big people thought they'd better send him far away, because it wasn't right that he should think himself a cat.”

Suzanna's eyes flamed in anger. ”I think they were cruel,” she cried, ”not to let him stay at home. I know the girl whose grandfather he was.

Her name's Mary Holmes, and she cried because they sent her grandfather away. But she didn't tell me why.”