Maizie wanted to sleep a little longer, but though the clock had but
just chimed six Suzanna was up and had drawn the window curtain letting
in a flood of sunshine. Maizie lay watching her sister, her gray eyes
still blurred with sleep; not wide and interested as a little later they
would be. Her soft little features expressing her naive personality
seemed unsubtle, yet of contours so lovely in this period just after
babyhood that one longed to cuddle her.
Suzanna stood a long time at the window, so long indeed that Maizie
feared she was lost to all materialities. Suzanna, wonderful one, who
could strike from dull stuff magic dreams; who could vivify and
gloriously color the little things of life; who could into the simplest
happenings read thrilling interpretations! What bliss to accompany her
upon her wanderings, and what sadness to be forgotten!
Indeed Suzanna seemed oblivious. Certainly in spirit she was absent and
at last Maizie could bear the silence no longer.
"Suzanna!" she cried.
Then Suzanna turned. She did not speak, however, but placed a warning
finger upon her lips. Then she went swiftly to the closet and took down
her best white dress. She laid it tenderly on the back of a chair till
she had found in the lowest bureau drawer her white stockings and
slippers, then she brushed and combed her hair, confined it lightly with
a length of ribbon, washed her hands and face in the little bowl which
stood in one corner near the window and leisurely donned the white
dress.
Maizie sat straight up in bed watching in amazement. At last Suzanna
glanced over at her little wistful sister, then in stately fashion
advanced toward the bed, till close to Maizie she paused. Tall and
slender she stood, with eyes amber-colored, eyes which turned to black
in moments of deep emotion. Her brown hair touched with copper sprang
back from her brow in waving grace; her delicate features called for
small attention, excepting her mouth which was softly curved, eager of
speech, grave, mutinous, the most expressive part of an expressive
face.
Suzanna danced through life, sang her way to the hearts of others, left
her touch wherever she went; yet, beneath the lightness, philosophies of
life formed themselves intuitively, one after another, truer perhaps in
their findings than those which filtered through the pure intellect of
the grown-up.
At length she spoke to Maizie. "You mustn't say anything to me, Maizie,
unless I ask you a question," she commanded, "because I'm a princess who
lives in a crystal palace in a wonderful country with oceans and
mountains."
Maizie did not reply; what could she say? Simply she stared as Suzanna
moved gracefully about the room with the slow movements she considered
fitting a princess.
At last she returned to the bed. She began: "Maizie, I wish you to rise,
dress thyself, then go into thy parents' room and if the baby is awake,
dress him as Suzanna, thy sister, did when she was here and not a
princess."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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