FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   232   233   234   235   236   237   238   239   240   241   242   243   244   245   246   247   248   249   250   251   252   253   254   255   256  
257   258   259   260   261   262   263   264   265   266   267   268   269   270   271   272   273   274   275   276   277   278   279   280   281   >>   >|  
nd her elves in convention behind the rose bush, or the whispers of gnomes hiding among the cornrows. Good republican that I was, I listened without reproof to her adoring fealty to Kings and Queens. Her love of Knights and tournaments was openly fostered at my hand. "If she should die out of this, her glorious imaginary world, she shall die happy," was my thought, "and if she lives to look back upon it with a woman's eyes, she shall remember it as a shining world in which her Daddy was a rough but kindly councillor, a mortal of whom no fairy need have fear." The circus was my daughter's royal tournament, an assemblage of all the kings and queens, knights and fairies of her story books. She hated the clowns but the parade of the warriors and their sovereign exalted her. The helmeted spearmen, the lithe charioteers, the hooded drivers sitting astride the heads of vast elephants were characters of the Arabian Nights, passing veritably before her eyes. The winged dancers of the spectacle came straight from the castle of Queen Mab, the pale acrobats were brothers to Hector and Achilles. As she watched them pass she gripped my hand as if to keep touch with reality, her little heart swollen with almost intolerable delight. "It makes me shiver," she whispered, and I understood. As the last horseman of the procession was passing, she asked faintly--"Will it come again, Poppie?" "Yes, it will come once more," I replied, recalling my own sense of loss when the Grand Entry was over. As the queen, haughty of glance, superb in her robe of silver once more neared us, indolently swaying to the movement of the elephant, who bore his housings of purple and gold with stately solemnity, my daughter's tiny body quivered with ecstasy and her beautiful eyes dilated with an intensity of admiration, of worship which made me sad as well as happy, and then just as the resplendent princess was passing for the last time, Mary Isabel rose in her place and waving a kiss to her liege lady cried out in tones of poignant love and despair, "Good-by, dear Queen!" and I, holding her tender palpitant figure in my arms, heard in that slender silver-sweet cry the lament of childhood, childhood whose dreams were passing never to return. * * * * * Chicago did not offer much by way of magnificence but Mary Isabel made the most of what we took her to see. The gold room of the hotel was a part of her imaginary kingd
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   232   233   234   235   236   237   238   239   240   241   242   243   244   245   246   247   248   249   250   251   252   253   254   255   256  
257   258   259   260   261   262   263   264   265   266   267   268   269   270   271   272   273   274   275   276   277   278   279   280   281   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

passing

 

silver

 
imaginary
 

Isabel

 

daughter

 

childhood

 

neared

 
stately
 
purple
 

solemnity


housings

 

swaying

 

indolently

 
movement
 

elephant

 

faintly

 

Poppie

 
procession
 

shiver

 

whispered


understood

 

horseman

 

replied

 

haughty

 

glance

 

quivered

 
recalling
 

superb

 

dreams

 

return


Chicago

 

lament

 

slender

 

magnificence

 

figure

 

palpitant

 

resplendent

 

princess

 

dilated

 

beautiful


intensity

 
admiration
 

worship

 

despair

 

poignant

 
holding
 

tender

 

waving

 

ecstasy

 

remember