England -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction; Spiritualism -- Fiction
Archie was sitting on the floor in the school-room leaning against Miss
Bampton's knee. He had been staring at the coals, holding Miss Bampton's
hand in his, when suddenly there came over him precisely the same
sensation that he remembered feeling one night, years ago, when he woke
and imagined himself and the night-nursery expanding and extending till
they embraced all that existed. That sensation throbbed and thrilled
through him now, and he said:
"Oh, Miss Bampton, how easy! Why, it's the longest tail-feather of the
thrush that Cyrus killed."
"Oh, Archie, don't guess," said Jeannie. "It's no use just guessing."
"But it is!" said Archie. "I'm not guessing. I know. Isn't it, Miss
Bampton?"
It certainly was, and so, by the rules of the game, since it had been
guessed in under five minutes, Miss Bampton had to think again. But now
Archie tried in vain to recapture the mood that made Miss Bampton's mind
so transparently clear to him. He knew what that mood felt like, that
falling away of the limitations of consciousness, that expansion and
extension of himself; but he could not feel it; it would not come by
effort on his part; it came, he must suppose, as it chose, like a
sneeze...
As Christmas drew near another amazing talent of Miss Bampton's showed
itself. Marjorie had been up to London one day, to combine the pains of
the dentist with the pleasure of a play, and came back with a comforted
tooth and the strong desire to act. Instantly Miss Bampton rose to the
occasion.
"Let's get up a play to act to your father and mother on New Year's
night," she said.
"Oh, it would be fun," said Marjorie. "But what play could we act?"
"I'll write you one," said Miss Bampton. And write it she did, with a
speed and a lavishness of plot that would have astonished more
deliberate dramatists. There was a villain, a usurper king (Miss
Bampton); there was a fairy (Marjorie); there was the rightful and
youthful king (Archie); who lived (Act I) in painful squalor in a
dungeon, attended only by the jailer's daughter (Jeannie) who knew his
identity and loved him, whether he was in a dungeon or on a throne.
Luckily, he loved her too, anywhere, and they were kind to a
beggar-woman, who turned out to be the fairy, and did the rest. Miss
Bampton was consigned to the lowest dungeon, and everybody else lived
happily ever afterwards.
Then came the question of dresses, and Marjorie rather thoughtlessly
exclaimed:
"I'm sure mother will let me have her Abracadabra clothes for the fairy.
Oh--I forgot," she added, remembering that Archie was present.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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