nt
Nettie couldn't refrain from a repetition of the climactic word;

"E-priss!" And she actually giggled!

At the sound, Missy felt herself growing "deathly mute, even to the
lips", but she managed to maintain a mien of intense composure.

"What does that mean, Missy?" queried father.

He was regarding her kindly, with no hint of hidden amusement. Father
was a tall, quiet and very wise man, and Missy had sometimes found
it possible to talk with him about the unusual things that rose up to
fascinate her. She didn't distrust him so much as most grown-ups.

So she smiled at him and said informatively:

"It means to be in intense sympathy with."

"Oh, I see. Did you find that in the French dictionary?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, I see we'll all have to be taking up foreign languages if we're
to have such an accomplished young lady in the house."

He smiled at her in a way that made her almost glad, for a moment, that
he was her father instead of a Duke who might surround her with baronial
magnificence. Mother, too, she couldn't help loving, though, in her
neat, practical gingham dress, she was so unlike Lady Chetwoode, the
mother in "Airy Fairy Lilian." Lady Chetwoode wore dainty caps, all
white lace and delicate ribbon bows that matched in colour her trailing
gown. Her small and tapering hands were covered with rings. She walked
with a slow, rather stately step, and there was a benignity about her
that went straight to the heart... Well, there was something about
mother, too, that went straight to the heart. Missy wouldn't trade off
her mother for the world.

But when, later, she wandered into the front parlour, she couldn't help
wishing it were a "drawing-room." And when she moved on out to the side
porch, she viewed with a certain discontent the peaceful scene before
her. Usually she had loved the side porch at the sunset hour: the close
fragrance of honeysuckles which screened one end, the stretch of slick
green grass and the nasturtium bed aflame like an unstirring fire, the
trees rustling softly in the evening breeze--yes, she loved it all for
the very tranquillity, the poignant tranquillity of it.

But that was before she realized there were in the world vast swards
that swept beyond pleasure-grounds (what WERE "pleasure-grounds"?), past
laughing brooklets and gurgling streams, on to the Park where roamed
herds of many-antlered deer and where mighty oaks flung their arms far
and wide; while mayhap, on a topmo