father's great Machine. At length she turned south toward the country.
She breathed deeply as she went, feeling how wonderful it was to be a
princess and to wander about as she pleased.

Throbbing with life and the beauty of it, the marvel of it, she began to
dance. Strange thoughts flowed through her, strange understandings,
that, little child as she was, she could find no words for. Only it
seemed color lay within her, rich color for a thought of love; a wistful
rose shade for a passing desire, a brilliant orange for the uplifting
knowledge that just to be alive was great. She stopped to gather a
passion flower because with its deep purple, its hidden heart that she
could very gently discover and gaze into, it fitted into her mood.

Oh, to be big, grown up! All these brightly winged thoughts uplifting
her, some of which puzzled her, some that frightened her, she would
quite understand then! In those far-off years of absolute knowledge
there would be no limitations; no commonplaces, only miracles. You could
make what you wished then of all your days.

She came at last upon a little house lying far back from the road. It
was like a toy house, and had stood open for years. The Procter children
had often played in the rooms of the small house, and once when Peter
was a baby he had fallen down the stairs, and his twin Helen, anguished
because he was hurt, had cried piteously until they were home again.

Now Suzanna opened the gate, mended, she noticed, and hanging straight,
and started down the garden path. Lovely old-fashioned flowers--pansies
and phlox and pinks and balsam were all in their happiest bloom. Suzanna
wondered who watered and tended them. As she lingered beside a pansy
bed, the door of the little house opened and a rather frail little old