Part 19 (1/2)
”Broad oak staircase”--”drawing-room”--”large, dull, handsome apartment”--oh, wonderful!
Then on to the description of the alluring heroine:
... the face is more than pretty, it is lovely--the fair, sweet, childish face, framed in by its yellow hair; her great velvety eyes, now misty through vain longing, are blue as the skies above her; her nose is pure Greek; her forehead low, but broad, is partly shrouded by little wandering threads of gold that every now and then break loose from bondage, while her lashes, long and dark, curl upward from her eyes, as though hating to conceal the beauty of the exquisite azure within...
There is a certain haughtiness about her that contrasts curiously but pleasantly with her youthful expression and laughing, kissable mouth.
She is straight and lissome as a young ash tree; her hands and feet are small and well-shaped; in a word, she is chic from the crown of her fair head down to her little arched instep...
Missy sighed; how wonderful it must be to be a creature so endowed by the G.o.ds!
Missy--Melissa--now, at the advanced age of fifteen, had supposed she knew all the wonders of books. She had learned to read the Book of Life: its enchantments, so many and so varied in Cherryvale, had kept her big grey eyes wide with smiles or wonder or, just occasionally, darkened with the mystery of sorrow. There was the reiterant magic of greening spring; and the long, leisurely days of delicious summer; the companions.h.i.+p of a quaint and infinitely interesting baby brother, and of her own cat--majesty incarnate on four black legs; and then, just lately, this exciting new ”best friend,” Tess O'Neill. Tess had recently moved to Cherryvale, and was ”different”--different even from Kitty Allen, though Missy had suffered twinges about letting anyone displace Kitty. But--
And, now, here it was in Tess's adorable attic (full of treasures discarded by departed tenants of the old Smith place) that Missy turned one of Life's milestones and met ”the d.u.c.h.ess.”
Missy had loved to read the Bible (good stories there, and beautiful words that made you tingle solemnly); and fairy tales never old; and, almost best of all, the Anthology, full of poetry, that made you feel a strange live spirit back of the wind and a world of mysteries beyond the curtain of the sky.
But this--
The lure of letters was turned loud and seductive as the Blue Danube played on a golden flute by a boy king with his crown on!
Tess glanced up from her reading.
”How's your book?” she enquired.
”Oh, it's wonderful,” breathed Missy.
”Mine, too. Here's a description that reminds me a little of you.”
”Me?” incredulously.
”Yes. It's about the heroine--Phyllis. She's not pretty, but she's got a strange, underlying charm.”
Missy held her breath. She was ashamed to ask Tess to read the description of the strangely charming heroine, but Tess knew what friends.h.i.+p demanded, and read:
”'I am something over five-feet-two, with brown hair that hangs in rich chestnut tresses far below my waist.'”
”Oh,” put in Missy modestly, while her heart palpitated, ”my hair is just mouse-coloured.”
”No,” denied Tess authoritatively, ”you've got nut-brown locks. And your eyes, too, are something like Phyllis's eyes--great grey eyes with subtle depths. Only yours haven't got saucy hints in them.”
Missy wished her eyes included the saucy hints. However, she was enthralled by Tess's comparison, though incomplete. Was it possible Tess was right?
Missy wasn't vain, but she'd heard before that she had ”beautiful eyes.”
Perhaps Tess WAS right. Missy blushed and was silent. Just then, even had she known the proper reply to make, she couldn't have voiced it.
As ”the d.u.c.h.ess” might have phrased it, she was ”naturally covered with confusion.”
But already Tess had flitted from the delightfully embarra.s.sing theme of her friend's looks.
”Wouldn't it be grand,” she murmured dreamily, ”to live in England?”
”Yes--grand,” murmured Missy in response.