way of
speaking. The girls are crazy about her and talk about her all the time.

FELIX KING.

BEAUTIFUL ALICE

That is what we girls call Miss Reade among ourselves. She is divinely
beautiful. Her magnificent wealth of raven hair flows back in glistening
waves from her sun-kissed brow. (DAN: "If Felix had said she was
sunburned you'd have all jumped on him." (CECILY, COLDLY: "Sun-kissed
doesn't mean sunburned." DAN: "What does it mean then?" CECILY,
EMBARRASSED: "I--I don't know. But Miss Montague says the Lady
Geraldine's brow was sun-kissed and of course an earl's daughter
wouldn't be sunburned. "THE STORY GIRL: "Oh, don't interrupt the reading
like this. It spoils it.") Her eyes are gloriously dark and deep, like
midnight lakes mirroring the stars of heaven. Her features are like
sculptured marble and her mouth is a trembling, curving Cupid's bow.
(PETER, ASIDE: "What kind of a thing is that?") Her creamy skin is as
fair and flawless as the petals of a white lily. Her voice is like the
ripple of a woodland brook and her slender form is matchless in its
symmetry. (DAN: "That's Valeria's way of putting it, but Uncle Roger
says she don't show her feed much." FELICITY: "Dan! if Uncle Roger is
vulgar you needn't be!") Her hands are like a poet's dreams. She dresses
so nicely and looks so stylish in her clothes. Her favourite colour is
blue. Some people think she is stiff and some say she is stuck-up, but
she isn't a bit. It's just that she is different from them and they
don't like it. She is just lovely and we adore her.)

CECILY KING.

CHAPTER X. DISAPPEARANCE OF PADDY

As I remember, the spring came late that year in Carlisle. It was May
before the weather began to satisfy the grown-ups. But we children were
more easily pleased, and we thought April a splendid month because the
snow all went early and left gray, firm, frozen ground for our rambles
and games. As the days slipped by they grew more gracious; the hillsides
began to look as if they were thinking of mayflowers; the old orchard
was washed in a bath of tingling sunshine and the sap stirred in the
big trees; by day the sky was veiled with delicate cloud drift, fine and
filmy as woven mist; in the evenings a full, low moon looked over the
valleys, as pallid and holy as some aureoled saint; a sound of laughter
and dream was on the wind and the world grew young with the