heart, which could take on so many bewildering variations, became
the Chant of Mystery. How interesting, how tremendously, ineffably
interesting was Life! She slept.




CHAPTER IV

MISSY TACKLES ROMANCE


Melissa was out in the summerhouse, reading; now and then lifting
her eyes from the big book on her lap to watch the baby at play.
With a pail of sand, a broken lead-pencil and several bits of twig,
the baby had concocted an engrossing game. Melissa smiled
indulgently at his absurd absorption; while the baby, looking up,
smiled back as one who would say: "What a stupid game reading is to
waste your time with!"

For the standpoint of three-years-old is quite different from that
of fourteen-going-on-fifteen. Missy now felt almost grown-up; it had
been eons since SHE was a baby, and three; even thirteen lay back
across a chasm so wide her thoughts rarely tried to bridge it.
Besides, her thoughts were kept too busy with the present. Every day
the world was presenting itself as a more bewitching place.
Cherryvale had always been a thrilling place to live in; but this
was the summer which, surely, would ever stand out in italics in her
mind. For, this summer, she had come really to know Romance.