Oh, to be big, grown up! All these brightly winged thoughts uplifting her, some of which puzzled her, some that frightened her, she would quite understand then! In those far-off years of absolute knowledge there would be no limitations; no commonplaces, only miracles. You could make what you wished then of all your days. She came at last upon a little house lying far back from the road. It was like a toy house, and had stood open for years. The Procter children had often played in the rooms of the small house, and once when Peter was a baby he had fallen down the stairs, and his twin Helen, anguished because he was hurt, had cried piteously until they were home again. Now Suzanna opened the gate, mended, she noticed, and hanging straight, and started down the garden path. Lovely old-fashioned flowers--pansies and phlox and pinks and balsam were all in their happiest bloom. Suzanna wondered who watered and tended them. As she lingered beside a pansy bed, the door of the little house opened and a rather frail little old lady came out, followed by a maid who carried a chair that was filled with pillows. She set the chair under a tree midway in the garden between the house and the road. The old lady sank into it and the maid deftly covered her with a large woolen shawl; then saying some word, and placing a small silver bell on the grass within easy reach of the lady in the chair the maid left. Suzanna stood, unable to run. Someone then had moved into the tiny house. And who? Suzanna knew everyone in the village of Anchorville, and the old lady was a stranger. Suzanna gave up the question and started back toward the gate when the old lady suddenly turned and saw the child. [Illustration: The prettiest old lady she had ever seen] "Come here," she called, and Suzanna perforce obeyed. When she stood near the small figure in the chair she waited, while she decided that this was quite the prettiest old lady she had ever seen. The wavy silver hair lying under a white lace cap, with two little curls falling on either side made the blue eyes seems like a very little baby's at the stage when they're deciding just what color they shall be. Like Suzanna, the lady was dressed in white, flowing as to skirt, and trimmed with quantities of fine old lace. On her hand was one ring, a lovely moonstone. Suzanna at once loved that ring, not because it was a piece of jewelry, but because it did look like a stray moonbeam that the rain had fallen on. "And who may you be?" asked the old lady at once. Now something about her hostess called out all of Suzanna's colorful imagination. She felt an instant response to this personality. "I am a princess, the Princess Cecilia," she answered promptly. "Ah," the old lady straightened up and a sudden, vivid change became at once manifest in her manner. "Draw closer to me." Suzanna obeyed, moving till she touched the old lady's hand that rested on the wings of the old-fashioned chair.