Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.) -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
"Sssssh!" she whispered, "walk lightly, Mr. Architect or you'll wake
up little Miss Architect--besides, we'll have to sneak by the kitchen
or Janet and Molly will see us. They really don't know that I know
there's going to be a party, though I should think--" she paused to
sniff critically as they passed the pantry door, "that Molly would
know that anybody could guess there was a party with celestial smells
like that." She had soothed him somewhat even before they reached the
back yard and of course the lattices weren't really so bad as they had
seemed to his fastidious eye. They did deviate from his neat
blueprints. Even the sullen old carpenters admitted that they did, but
presently things were adjusted and the workmen had departed bearing
the offending trelliage with them with absurd little newspaper
patterns pinned to the tops.
Felicia was flushed and panting from having cut those ridiculous
patterns. She waved her shears slowly to and fro, and the Architect
shouted with boyish glee.
"Silliest way I ever heard of," he chortled, "perfectly silly, but the
old ducks did seem to take to it. Felicia Day, you are a little old
wonder."
She gazed up at him mournfully.
"Old!" she echoed and shivered.
"I didn't mean 'old' really," he stammered, "I just meant, well, I
just meant you were--" he paused awkwardly.
"I don't look awfully old, do I?" she asked it with such delicious
anxiety that he laughed. "I mean, I don't look so awfully old as I
did, do I?"
He thought he was saying a perfectly satisfactory thing when he
answered.
"You look just like your wonderful self and we wouldn't have you
changed for worlds. Why, you're our fairy grandmother."
Her little hand crept to the back of the bench. She steadied herself.
And decided something very quietly.
"Do this for me," she commanded. "Telephone Mr. Ralph. Tell him I said
that I didn't want him to keep the engagement that I had him make for
me this evening. That I won't be here at nine o'clock, that I have to
go out. That he mustn't bring the visitor I asked him to bring. That
I've changed my mind about seeing that visitor."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account