A Birthday," and it went:

My heart is like a singing bird Whose nest is in a watered shoot; My
heart is like an apple tree Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in a halcyon sea; My heart
is gladder than all these, Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down; Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it with doves and pomegranates, And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work in it gold and silver grapes, In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys,
Because the birthday of my life Is come; my love is come to me.

The poem expressed beautifully what she might have answered when Aunt
Nettie asked why she smiled. Only, even though she herself could have
expressed it so beautifully then, it was not the kind of answer you'd
dream of making to Aunt Nettie.

The next morning Missy awoke to find the rain gone and warm, golden
sunshine filtering through the lace curtains. She dressed herself
quickly, while the sunshine smiled and watched her toilet. After
breakfast, at the piano, her fingers found the scales tiresome. Of
themselves they wandered off into unexpected rhythms which seemed to
sing aloud: Work it in gold and silver grapes, In leaves and silver
fleurs-de-lys... Raise me a dais of silk and down; Hang it with vair and
purple dyes...

She was idly wondering what a "vair" might be when her dreams were
crashed into by mother's reproving voice: "Missy, what are you doing? If
you don't get right down to practicing, there'll be no more parties!"

Abashed, Missy made her fingers behave, but not her heart. It was
singing a tune far out of harmony with chromatic exercises, and she was
glad her mother could not hear.

The tune kept right on throughout dinner. During the meal she was called
to the telephone, and at the other end was Raymond; he wanted her to
save him the first dance that evening. What rapture--this was what
happened to the beautiful belles you read about!

After dinner mother and Aunt Nettie went to call upon some ladies they
hoped wouldn't be at home--what funny things grown-ups do! The baby was
taking his nap, and Missy had a delicious long time ahead in which to be
utterly alone.

She took the library book of poems and a book of her father's out to
the summerhouse. First she opened the book of her father's. It was
a translation of a Russian book, very deep and moving and sad and
incomprehensible. A perfectly fascinating book! It always filled he