The Red Book Magazine/Volume 17/Number 2/Janey Discovers the Great Illusion

ANEY examined herself in the mirror. It was the dulled and fly-specked glass indigenous to the country store. There peered back at her a little, triangular wedge of face that began in a pearly brow, continued under a heavy fall of freckles and ended in a point of pearly chin.

Avidly Janey searched the combination of friendly blue eyes, ridiculous dab of nose and wistful pink mouth for a trace of incipient young-ladyhood.

Mrs. Blair, turning suddenly from the counter, caught the picture—reflected for the hundredth time that Janey had never lost her baby face.

“Mother,” Janey said as they stepped from the gloom of the store into the shaded brightness of the main street, “I shall be perfickly happy when I'm ten years old.”

“Well, I shall be perfectly happy when you're grown up,” said her mother. “This ordering a pattern to fit a child of nine who will soon be ten and is no bigger than six and yet has just started to grow, is something that requires genius. I shall be glad when you reach standard size and stay there.”

“Just think—my birthday'll be here in two weeks! Oh it doesn't seem as if I could wait,” Janey said. “When I'm ten—”

“Good morning, girls!” her mother interrupted. Janey started. Then her face turned blank: she could never accustom herself to her mother's calling ladies'  girls. Mrs. Morgan and Mrs. Kingdon, crossing from the other side of the street, had joined them from behind. There was a flurry of greetings and laughter. Janey withdrew into herself. She knew that all chances of a free expression of her opinion were gone. Any contribution that she would make to the conversation of the three mothers would be greeted by Mrs. Blair with a “Yes, dear—but don't ask any more questions, dear—mother doesn't want to talk with you now.”

The talk submerged her for an instant, then flowed over and past. She contented herself with a consideration of the raptures and triumphs and glories of being ten.

Why when you became ten, you entered a new world as definitely as if one's ninth birthday were a little doorway in that endless Wall of Time which stretched from the clear, familiar, lovely Land of Now to the vague, strange, terrifying Land of Forever. Opening it, you passed into—

In the first place you would feel a whole extra year older than the awed and humble little Caroline—who, nevertheless, would glide with equal pace from five to six: you would feel a whole extra year nearer a proud and lofty Elsa Morgan—who, notwithstanding, would leap with equal agility from twelve to thirteen. Janey recalled vaguely that she had experienced the same sensations in going from eight to nine. But she had been mistaken—nine had turned out to be a dead level of existence, much like eight. Whereas ten—You would go into a higher class in school. There would be ten candles on your birthday cake. There would be ten little guests at your birthday party. Moreover, Janey felt certain that her tenth birthday, like a ticket, magically endowed, would carry her straight into the heart of that grown-up “crowd” which twelve-year-old Elsa Morgan and thirteen-year-old Colette Kingdon ruled as twin queens. Ah yes, there was something fairly intoxicating about ten-ness. Janey drew the long breath of him who casts aside forever cramping and deforming fetters.

And then over this rosy-hued mood suddenly slimed the inevitable serpent.

“perfectly boy-crazy!” Mrs. Morgan was saying. “It seems as if I would fly out of my skin. Ordinarily, it's Edward Hollis all day long. But if any new boy comes to town, she talks about nothing but him.”

“I'm sure Elsa isn't a circumstance to Colette,” Mrs. Kingdon took it up. “Colette is so silly, trying to conceal from me that she's exchanged rings with Stubby West and is wearing his sweater. At first, I thought I'd put my foot down hard and stop it all. Then Wentworth recalled to me that when we were children we went through pretty nearly the same experience—you know Wentworth and I were brought up in the same town. My mother discovered that I used to take walks with Wentworth and she very foolishly made an awful fuss about it to father. I was so ashamed, I remember; I cried and cried for days and days. Well, when Wentworth recalled that to me, I just made up my mind that I wouldn't repeat mother's mistake. And, as Wentworth says, what difference does it make anyway? They're all nice boys and I'm sure they play very gently with the girls.”

“But Mrs. Kingdon,” Mrs. Morgan asked, “have you realized what heart-burnings there have been at the various parties? It seems that the Virginia Reel is the climax of the evening's entertainment and, as Edward Hollis is the best dancer in Scarsett, all the girls are simply crazy to dance with him. I didn't realize it until I saw how Elsa manœuvered to have him for a partner at her fairy party.”

“Yes, and Colette fixed it so that he danced with her at her Mother Goose party. I really never did see anything so shameless.” Mrs. Kingdon laughed indulgently. “Oh, I'm so glad that the parties are over!”

“Oh, it just makes me feel envious to hear you talk like this,” Mrs. Blair exclaimed. “I shall love it when Janey's a big girl and can have real dancing-parties.” Janey could hear in her mother's voice a note of the same rapture with which she, herself, anticipated the golden age of ten. “Elsa looked so lovely as the white-and-silver fairy and Colette was such a wonderful Queen of Hearts—I just envied you two, fussing over their pretty clothes. Oh, if Janey would only grow up!”

So! After she and Caroline had cried themselves to sleep because they were not invited to participate in these functions, their mothers had treacherously deserted their offspring to go, themselves, to the parties. For an instant—betrayed by her nearest and dearest—Janey seemed to hang in the most icy and isolated of voids.

“Edward Hollis is a nice dancer,” Mrs. Blair continued, “I don't wonder the girls want him for a partner. Then he's so strong—that appeals to them. Which reminds me, I'm going to have a young athlete on my hands for the next two weeks—Bobby Mackintosh. Do you remember Mrs. Mackintosh, Lou? She sat at our table that time you came to luncheon with me last winter—a pretty woman with red hair and the complexion that goes with it.”

“Oh perfectly!” said Mrs. Morgan. “I thought her charming.”

“Heaven only knows what I'm going to do with him—he's so active. He's as strong as a young giant—exercises all the time. He's a beautiful dancer too, though his mother positively has to drive him to dancing-school. He actually won a prize for fancy dancing at the close of the season last year.”

And then the talk, turning to peach-plum jelly, left Janey to meditation. Bobby Mackintosh, the most abhorred of boys, was coming to their house for two weeks. Elsa Morgan's crowd loved new boys. Elsa Morgan's crowd liked strong boys. Elsa Morgan's crowd liked dancing better than anything else in the world. Elsa Morgan's crowd fought for partners in the Virginia Reel. Bobby was new, strong and a dancer. These thoughts boiled, sizzled, fermented and finally exploded in Janey Blair's little head.

The explosion did not occur until noon however; and then, it was so carefully veiled in Janey's airiest aspect of composure, her politest tone of entreaty, that even Uncle Jim, wizard though he was, did not recognize it as an explosion.

“Mother, when are you going to get me the paper to send out invitations for my birthday party?”

Mrs. Blair sighed. Uncle Jim groaned. But Janey only set her pink lips the firmer. It was always thus when she labored with the hide-bound conservatism of adults. “You promised when I was sick,” she reminded them collectively.

“Go on, Miriam, pay up,” said Uncle Jim, deserting his sister for the enemy. “Be a sport! And may it be a lesson to you!”

Janey had observed that men were much more susceptible to conversion than women.

“Well, a little one maybe,” Mrs. Blair said feebly. “Just ten little girls, one for each year.”

“Mother,” Janey interposed again, “you know Bobby Mackintosh will be here and he's a great big boy—he wont [sic] want to play with little girls.”

“Oh my pities!” Mrs. Blair exclaimed in the depths of self-commiseration. “You're right, Janey. Heavens, Jim, I haven't words to describe how I dread two weeks with that Bobby Mackintosh. Mrs. Mackintosh is the nicest woman I know. But Bobby—oh he's so trying; one of those boys with an inquiring mind. Isn't it wonderful how children forget!” she added in an aside. “He used to tickle Janey and trip her up and pull her hair and make fun of her clothes and it's all gone out of her head. Well,” she concluded, “I always have to go to bed for a day after Janey's parties and this one will probably land me in a rest cure. But if I promised, I suppose I must. We'll have to have dancing.”

“Oh yes, mother, we must have a Virginia Reel,” Janey said guilelessly.

“Oh, of course. Now Janey, I'm not going to have any quarreling about partners. I shall pick two of as many kinds of flowers as there are couples. I'll give out one set to the girls and one to the boys and these whose flowers match will have to dance together. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” said Janey. “Caroline, let's go down to the beach!”

Caroline seizing her pail and shovel, pattered over to Janey's side. “Do you like Bobby Mackintosh?” she asked of her preöccupied chief, when they were well out of ear-shot.

“I hate him,” Janey said with the simple brevity which characterized all her expressions of opinion. “More than I hate other boys,” she added after a pause.

“It'th too bad heeth coming down here,” said Caroline.

“I'm glad he's coming down,” said Janey. “And you'll see why, Caroline Benton, before I get through.”

The ocean stretched like a pulsating carpet of gray satin from the dish-shaped curve of the beach to the roll of gauze that veiled the horizon. To the satin of the middle distance, a group of moss-boats, the mossers calling and laughing as they pulled at the weedy rocks, gave the sound of activity. To the gauze far off, a file of sail-boats, beating their silver wings for balance on the horizon-line, gave a note of motion. To the long, hummocky, dun-colored stretch of sand, a group of boys and girls in bathing-suits gave a splendid splash of color.

The girls sat in a line with their backs against a boat. Head and front of them was Elsa Morgan—a frail, blonde elf, her glittering hair loose and streaming like a golden cataract over her pale-blue princess bathing-suit. Next in importance came Colette Kingdon—an incipient goddess in crimson, gray-eyed and chestnut-haired, a subtle foreshadowing in face and figure of the massively-handsome woman into which she was predestined to grow. Lower in the scale reclined two handmaids: Cordy West—a little, thin brunette, carved of ivory by nature and colored amber by the sun, included in the “crowd” because boys appealed to her only as creatures whom she must try to outrun or outswim—and Pink Hollis, like a full-blown peony, sweet, amiable, rosy-cheeked, who bore the proud distinction of being sister to the season's hero, Edward Hollis. But if Cordy and Pink served but as ladies-in-waiting, the other three girls—sly, spiteful, hook-nosed Hannah Merrill, stupid, dumpy, spectacled Betsy Clark, shy, silent, hazel-eyed Lucy Locke—merged with one another into a mere unconsidered background for Elsa and Colette.

Opposite this array of femininity, the boys, more or less buried in the sand, presented to the eye only their shaved, bullet heads and a heterogeneous collection of arms and legs, the color of rust and bulging with muscle. There was Edward Hollis, clean-skinned and athletic-looking. There were Stubby Keith and Jakey West, the replica of each other except for an inch or two of height, all tanned to a ferocious black and still peeling. There were Tom and Wentie Kingdon, of a Swede-like blondness, so shaved as to head that their ears almost flapped in the breeze and so freckled as to be virtually featureless. There was last and least of all, Kim Morgan, mediocre brother of Elsa.

Janey: saw none of these details. She only knew that here was the holy of holies of junior society in Scarsett, that here was the Mecca of her social pilgrimage.

Elsa Morgan, glancing up, caught sight of the children. Her face changed subtly. But before she could submit Janey to the freezing-out process that always sent her home raging, Janey spoke.

“Mother says,” she announced in her clear, decided treble, “that I can have a party on my birthday. That's week after next—Thursday. And I want you to come.”

Had Janey thrown a lighted hay-mow into their midst, the effect could not have been more sudden. You could almost hear the ice crack. You could almost see the ice melt.

“Going to have ice cream, Janey?” asked Stubby West, who was the cut-up for the crowd. “I don't go to parties where they don't have ice cream.”

“Of course we're going to have ice cream,” said Janey indignantly. “How could it be a party without ice cream?” However deficient Janey was in sense of humor, she was as strong as most children in sense of diplomacy. “You see,” she went on, “besides being my birthday, Bobby Mackintosh is coming down for two weeks and my mother says we ought to do something to make him have a good time.”

The stir of interest that this statement elicited was not confined entirely to the boys.

“How old is this Bobby Mackintosh?” Elsa asked in a tone that she labored to make languid.

“Fifteen,” Janey answered.

“What kind of a boy is he?” Elsa went on.

“Heeth a horrid boy,” little Caroline put in indignantly. “Janey hatesth him and tho do I. He pullth her hair and makth fun of her rompers and tripth her up—”

“He does tease me,” Janey said with exactly as much sweetness as if Caroline, by this untimely abuse, had not put a spoke in the wheel of her diplomacy. “But that's only because he doesn't like little girls.” She paused an instant, then played her trump card. “You see he likes girls old enough to dance. He won a prize for being the best dancer in his dancing-school last winter.”

“Oh!” said Elsa and “Oh!” said Colette and “Oh!” said all the satellites.

“Are you going to have dancing at your party?” Colette asked.

“Oh, of course,” said Janey brightly. “Nothing but dancing.”

“Are you going to have a Virginia Reel?” Elsa continued, not attempting now to conceal her eagerness.

“Oh, of course,” Janey replied again.

“What school does this Bobby Mackintosh go to?” Edward Hollis asked in a deep, masculine voice.

“He's going away to school next year—I don't know what kind of a school it is. His mother calls it a prep school. He's awful strong. He has dumb-bells in his room and those things that look like nine-pins and he plays base-ball and foot-ball.”

Edward Hollis said nothing, but doubling up his fist and swinging his mighty forearm, he contemplated a swelling biceps with satisfaction.

“Is it going to be a costume party?” Colette asked.

Janey thought rapidly. Elsa had given a fairy party, Colette a Mother Goose party. Her imagination, swimming in possibilities, perceived an idea, dived for it, emerged with it in its teeth, so to speak. “I think it will be a flower-party,” she said sweetly. And drawing Caroline to her side, she took her place among the “crowd” as one who has presented credentials and been approved.

That afternoon, Elsa Morgan strolled over to the Warriner place for the first time in weeks. She presented Janey with a string of beads.

“Who's going to dance with you in the Virginia Reel—at your party, Janey?” she asked carelessly.

“I don't know,” said Janey truthfully.

“Well, I thought I'd stop in and tell you that I'll dance it with Bobby Mackintosh instead of Edward Hollis.” Elsa announced in her usual tone of command. “I want to help you all I can,” she added with a politeness that Janey had not for a long time met at her hands.

“Oh thank you, Elsa,” Janey said.

The next morning Colette Kingdon dropped in on her way to the Post-office. She was carrying a doll's high chair. “Janey,” she said winningly, “I found this among my things to-day and I remembered that you always liked it when we used to play dolls together. I don't play dolls any more myself, so I thought I'd bring it down and give it to you.”

“Oh Colette,” Janey said, with a real delight in her voice. “What a darling you are!”

“Oh—that boy who's coming to see you hasn't got here yet, has he?” Colette asked in an incidental sort of way.

“No,” Janey answered. “Mother got a letter from Mrs. Mackintosh to-day and she said she'd be down to-morrow.”

“I was thinking,” Colette went on, “that, perhaps, you'd like somebody to pay special attention to him, as he is a stranger here. And I was going to say that I'd promise to dance the Virginia Reel with him if you wanted me to.”

“Oh thank you, Colette,” Janey said.

That afternoon on her way to the beach, Betsy Clark dropped in.

“Oh, Janey,” she said, “last night I came across a whole lot of paper-dolls that I used to play with and I thought you and Caroline might like them, so I brought them over to-day. Of course I wont come in if that new boy, Bobby Mackintosh, is here. Except, perhaps, you'd like somebody to get acquainted with him. It would be dreadful if the night of your party, he didn't have anybody to dance the Virginia Reel with. I'll promise to be his partner, rather than have him feel hurt.”

“Oh, thank you, Betsy,” Janey said.

On her way to the village, Cordy West caught up with her. “Say, Janey,” she said in her boyish, straight-to-the-point way. “I wish you'd fix it so I could dance the Virginia Reel at your party with that new boy, Bobby Mackintosh. Not that I care anything about dancing with him. But I'd like to cut out Elsa and Colette for once. You know both those girls try to get every new boy that comes to this town and one of them always does. Besides, I feel as if he'd feel kinder lonesome and queer with no partner. And I wouldn't mind dancing with him—even if he was a bad dancer.”

“Oh thank you, Cordy,” Janey said.

In Mallon's, Hannah Merrill stopped her with—“Oh Janey! I've been trying to think to tell you something every time I saw you. I know how hard it is to make girls dance with strange boys at a party. And so if you want to tell that new boy, Bobby Mackintosh, that he's to dance the Virginia Reel with me, why of course I'm perfectly willing to be his partner.”

“Oh thank you, Hannah,” Janey said.

In fact, Janey's reply had become so stereotyped that whe1 Lucy Locke came panting up to her side with a—“Janey, dear, I just stopped to ask you—” Janey's lips were all made up for her opening—“Oh thank you,” the instant Lucy opened her mouth.

But Lucy had a surprise for her.

“—if at your party, you'd be sure not to make me dance the Virginia Reel with that new boy who's coming—Bobby—I forget his last name—”

“Mackintosh,” Janey replied.

“Oh yes—Mackintosh. For Janey—oh I'd be awfully ashamed if Elsa or Colette knew this—but I'm terribly bashful with new boys. I'll tell you a secret, Janey, if you'll cross your throat never to tell anybody: I'm terribly bashful with all boys. I always feel frightened when they ask me to dance. Are you afraid of them, Janey?”

“No,” Janey said, “I'm not afraid of them. But I hate them just as much as if I was.”

“Well, I'd really much rather not dance at all. And Janey, mother asked me to ask you if I might bring my little cousin, Carl Norris? He's coming over to stay with us for a few days 'and that's his last night. I wouldn't like to leave him at home.”

“Why of course,” Janey said cordially.

“He's only ten. And he's bashful too. And I thought if you didn't mind, Janey, I'd dance every dance with him—Virginia Reel and all.”

“All right, Lucy,” said Janey.

“Oh, mother!” Janey said at luncheon, “only eleven days more! I'll be perfickly happy when I'm ten.”

“And I'll be perfectly happy,” said her mother, “when you're grown up.”

Bobby Mackintosh arrived that afternoon. Janey observed with disapproval that he had not changed. His thatch of red hair, full of unmanageable cowlicks, still stuck up in all directions. His big blue eyes still protruded from his head in a hateful, staring, pop-eyed way. His prevailing expression of a sense of superiority to all little girls of nine had not softened an atom. In many other ways his development had not proceeded. Before he had been in the house five minutes, Henry James, the Maltese cat, had retreated wrathfully to the top shelf of the book-case, and George Meredith, the English bull-dog, had degenerated to a yowling, snapping, welter of indignation. Ten minutes more and he had broken Janey's music-box, smashed Caroline's swimming-doll and put Uncle Jim's typewriter out of commission. Two minutes later, proclaiming hunger, he had made way with one glass of milk, two slices of bread and butter, a huge square of ginger-bread and an apple.

The strange part of it was that Uncle Jim, on whose sapience in judging people, Janey could, hitherto, always depend—Uncle Jim seemed to regard him as a human being. For one thing, when Bobby discovered that Mr. Warriner was the author of a favorite foot-ball story, he asked him at least a hundred questions. In fact, the two males had a very interesting talk. Afterwards, Janey heard Uncle Jim tell Mrs. Mackintosh that Bobby had patronized him less than any young person he had met in the last five years.

As soon as possible, Janey took Bobby to the beach—a delighted Caroline tagging these grown-up happenings—and turned him loose on Elsa Morgan's crowd.

After all, Bobby had the virtues of his faults and he fulfilled every prophecy that Janey had made of him. In the dash for the raft, which of course Janey and Caroline could watch only from the shore, he distanced all competitors with a mighty stroke that tore the water into fountains on either side. Once on the raft, he gave an exhibition of fancy diving that brought the girls about him, clamoring for instruction. Coming back, he swam so long under water that even the boys began to look serious. In the warming-up game of ball in which, subsequently, all the males engaged, he caught flies that were the admiration of the girls and made hits that were the envy of the boys.

Trailing Bobby's arrival, Janey Blair swung immediately to the loftiest pinnacle of social success. Elsa offered to teach her how to play tennis. Colette invited her to her house for croquet. Cordy West included her among her guests on a hay-ride. But, better even than this, the girls were always running over at odd times to help her with her doll's clothes. Her family bloomed with an entire fall outfit.

Indeed the Warriner house became temporary rendezvous for the “crowd.”

“Just think,” Janey said for the hundredth time during the week, “I'm almost perfickly happy. I shall be perfickly happy when I'm ten.”

“And I shall be perfectly happy,” her mother reiterated with an emphasis that the last week seemed to have increased, “when you're grown-up.”

There was only one fly in the ointment. Even all this excitement could not seem to hurry the passage of time. “Mother, I feel as if my birthday would never come,” Janey said again and again.

The last day of her ninth year was the worst of all. “It does seem as if to-morrow would never get here,” Janey said fretfully. “I didn't sleep a wink all last night, waiting for to-day.”

Mrs. Blair and Mrs. Mackintosh received this dreadful intelligence with surprising serenity. They even smiled. Mentally, Janey condemned them for their heartlessness. How was she to know that her mother, entering the nursery at a precise quarter after eight, had found her little daughter securely locked in the arms of Morpheus.

But to-morrow did come, passing through the inevitable translation to to-day, during the process—and Elizabeth Jane Blair entered into the blissful state of ten-ness. Not quite blissful however—in spite of such delightful incidents as birthday presents plus ten pats and ten kisses from everybody. For if the last day of nine seemed long, what can be said of the first day of ten? With a birthday-party at its end, it simply prolonged itself through the ages and æons.

But at last an irresponsible sun, having wallowed for hours about the horizon-line, discovered no further excuse for staying above and gradually rolled below. At last, the treacherous stars—late to their appointment, every mother's son of them—began to pin-point their way through the sky. At last, an utterly criminal moon—due hours earlier—lifted a timid head out of the sea and peered about in a shamefaced way, as if, at the first sign of a rebuke, it would slink back into the water. At last, all the vases were filled with flowers and all the fire-places with greens. At last, the dinner-dishes cleared away and the table set with the beautiful Warriner heirlooms, Mrs. Blair, Mrs. Mackintosh and Mr. Warriner went about, lighting lamps, candles and lanterns and whittling paraffin on the bared library floor. At last the music-people came and took their places in the pretty, vine-hung corner. At last, the mothers inserted a flushed and sparkling little Janey into her costume of a white and gold daisy, and a flushed and sparkling little Caroline into her costume of a brown and gold daisy.

Then after one more æon of waiting, there came a step on the piazza—another—a few more—many—the babble of voices—the entrance into the room of what might be a file of girls with the bodies of flowers or a garland of flowers with the faces of girls—and the party had begun.

Begun I said. But for Janey Blair, it really began twice. The first time was when everybody arrived, and she settled herself down with a sigh of relief to watch, knowing full well that none of those big boys would ask her to dance. The second time was when the music struck up and little Carl Norris, the extra guest, suddenly arose, walked the length of the room, paused before her, presented her with a marvelous bow that bi-sected him exactly in the middle, adding in the trained accents of the dancing-schools:

“May I have the pleasure of the first dance?”

Exactly her height, exactly her size, little Carl had a delicate, pale, dark face over which his heavy brown curls were constantly trying to fall. He wore a little duck sailor-suit, the trousers of which came to the very ground and flared starchily there. He wore a wonderful tie of knotted cord, the ends of which disappeared into his blouse-pocket. He wore on one sleeve a mysterious device embroidered in colors.

To Janey it seemed as if the glass of fashion and the mould of form had stooped to her.

She rose trembling. Trembling, Carl put his arm about her. The two children teetered and see-sawed until they fancied they had caught the swing of the music, then, like two frail crafts that, having waited for fair weather, embark trustingly on a glassy sea, they whirled off. One instant, Janey thought with horror of Lucy and her promise to her; the next she caught sight of her spinning past with Bobby.

Finding Lucy a dancer perfectly adapted to his methods, Bobby Mackintosh economized time, trouble and energy by dancing every dance with her. In vain, Elsa Morgan, a vision of cool, blonde loveliness in her water-lily costume, waved white petals of coquetry in his very face. In vain, Colette—the most full-blown of pink roses—held out a thornless hand to him. In vain, Cordy, a bachelor-button, Betsy, a poppy, and Hannah, a morning-glory, assailed him with all kinds of hints, suggestions, invitations, opportunities. When the flowers were distributed for the Virginia Reel, he calmly seized two dahlias, presented one to his partner and then triumphantly led her forth.

Stubby West, maddened to fury by Colette's indifference, left the party prematurely. For three dances, Colette experienced the novel sensation of playing wall-flower. Bridling at first, her chagrin finally conquered. Hysterics ensued. Mrs. Blair and Mrs. Mackintosh haled her upstairs and spent an hour calming her.

Perhaps strangest of all was the metamorphosis of Lucy Locke. Never before had Lucy reigned belle. Never before had she been even courted. The color of excitement began to sift into her pale cheeks. The light of coquetry began to star her hazel eyes. Her little violet cap cocked itself rakishly over one ear. She danced like a fairy. Incessantly she talked. Incessantly she rang the chime of her silvery little laugh. The boys, following their leader, began to crowd about her. It was literally her début.

None of these events, however, excited such comment as the instantaneous romance of Janey Blair and Carl Norris.

They danced every dance together. In the pauses of the music, they sat side by side, rapturously exchanging ten-year-old points of view.

After the first waltz, Carl said—“Janey, will you dance every dance with me?”

And Janey said, “Yes.”

After the first two-step, Carl said—“Janey: when we eat our ice cream, will you sit with me?”

And Janey said, “Yes.”

In the intermission, Carl said—“Janey, will you be my girl? I never had a girl before.”

And Janey said, “Yes.”

After the Virginia Reel, Carl said—“Janey, I'm going home to-morrow but I'll come back again next year to Scarsett so's to be at your party when you're eleven. Will you dance every dance with me then?”

And Janey said, “Yes.”

After he had said his last good-night, he suddenly darted again to Janey's side. “Janey,” he whispered, “I think you're an awful pretty little girl. And when you're eleven, you'll be even prettier.”

Pretty!

She had always yearned to be pretty. But nobody had ever called her pretty before. Once she had asked her mother if she thought her pretty. Mrs. Blair had answered—“If you behave as well as you look, you'll do very well.” And once, not extracting much encouragement from that cryptic remark, she had inquired of the same authority if she thought she would be pretty when she grew up. Mrs. Blair had replied—“I don't know, I'm sure. Pretty is as pretty does.”

Pretty! Eleven! Eleven! !

Missing her daughter after the last guest had departed, Mrs. Blair went upstairs in search of her. Janey was not in the nursery. Mrs. Blair passed on to her own room. There in the corner, a small white-and-gold figure stood before the long pier-glass. But Janey was not looking at that reflection. She was peering at the smaller, closer one which peered back at her from a hand-mirror. Gazing into the taller glass, Mrs. Blair caught the whole picture.

The expression on Janey's face was new—a little happy smile, half the wonder of revelation, half self-satisfaction, ran riot there. Staring at her, Mrs. Blair caught the first budding in her daughter's look of another Janey—the Janey of eighteen years. Slim, virginal, delicate, dewy, the freckles vanished forever from the white skin, the incorrigible hair roped into a coronal softly burnished, softly brown, the red lips smiled with the unthinking joy of youth, the blue eyes shone with star-dreams.

Something warned Janey that she was not alone. She looked up. “Mother,” she said radiantly, “I shall be perfickly happy when I'm eleven.”

“Janey Blair,” her mother said, a desperate catch of the breath roughing her voice, “don't you dare grow up!”