Missy's head drooped; she felt deliciously drowsy. Into the silence of her dreams a cheerful voice intruded:
“Missy, dear, it's after ten o'clock and you're nodding! Oughtn't you go up to bed?”
“All right, mother.” Obediently she took her dreams upstairs with her, and into her little white bed.
Thursday afternoon, all shyness and importance strangely compounded, Missy carried a note-book to Mrs. Brooks's card-party. It was agreeable to hear Mrs. Brooks effusively explain: “Missy's working on the Beacon now, you know”; and to feel two dozen pairs of eyes upon her as she sat writing down the list of guests; and to be specially led out to view the refreshment-table. There was a profusion of flowers, but as Mrs. Brooks didn't have much “taste” Missy didn't catch the lilt of inspiration she had hoped for.
However, after she had worked her “write-up” over several times, she prefixed a paragraph on the decorations which she hoped would atone for the drab prosiness of the rest. It ran:
“Through the softly-parted portieres which separate Mrs. J. Barton Brooks's back-parlour from the dining room came a gracious emanation of scent and colour. I stopped for a moment in the doorway, and saw, abloom there before me, a magical maze of flowers. Flowers! Oh, multifold fragrance and tints divine which so ineffably enrich our lives! Does anyone know whence they come? Those fragile fairy creatures whose housetop is the sky; wakened by golden dawn; for whom the silver moon sings lullaby. Yes; sunlight it is, and blue sky and green earth, that endow them with their mysterious beauty; these, and the haze of rain that filters down when clouds rear their sullen heads. Sun and sky, and earth and rain; they alone may know--know the secrets of these fairy-folk who, from their slyly-opened petals, watch us at our hurrying business of life... We, mere humans, can never know. With us it must suffice to sweeten our hearts with the memory of fragrant flowers.”
She was proud of that opening paragraph. But Ed Martin blue-pencilled it.
“Short of space this week,” he said. “Either the flowers must go or 'those present.' It's always best to print names.” “Is the rest of it all right?” asked Missy, crest-fallen.