it go--and think what fun it will be that day when we tell the Major,
'It is Felice and not stupid old Octavia who is going to play with
you.' First you shall learn where to move the pieces and how to tell
me what Grandy has moved--then, we shall tie a handkerchief over my
eyes--as we do when you and I play hide the thimble--my hands shall
not touch the men at all. I shall say 'Pawn to Queen's Rook's square'
and you shall put this little man here--this is the Queen's Rook's
square--" It must have been the oddest game in the world, really,
between that stern old man and the blindfolded invalid and the grave
little girl who was learning to play. Of course it was easier for
Octavia--she didn't have to move her hands or keep her eyes open. She
could lie lower on the pillows--she smiled--a wavering smile when her
father's triumphant "Check!" would ring out.

"Alas, Felice!" she would murmur gaily, "are we not stupid! Together
we can't checkmate him--" They talked a great deal about chess. And
how you can't expect to do so much with pawns and how you mustn't mind
if you lose them. But how carefully you must guard the queen--or else
you'll lose your king--and how if "You just learn a little day by day
soon you'll have a gambit," and how "even if you don't care much about
doing the silly game, you like it because you know that it gives
Grandy much happiness."

It was in those days that Felice learned that not only must she keep
very happy herself but she must keep other people happy.

"It's not easy," Octavia assured her, "but it's rather amusing. It's a
game too. You see some one who is tired or cross or worried and you
think 'This isn't pleasant for him or for me!' Then you think of
something that may distract the tiredness or the worry--maybe you play