Suzanna Stirs the Fire

Excerpt

CHAPTER I

THE TUCKED-IN DAY

Maizie wanted to sleep a little longer, but though the clock had but just chimed six Suzanna was up and had drawn the window curtain letting in a flood of sunshine. Maizie lay watching her sister, her gray eyes still blurred with sleep; not wide and interested as a little later they would be. Her soft little features expressing her naïve personality seemed unsubtle, yet of contours so lovely in this period just after babyhood that one longed to cuddle her.

Suzanna stood a long time at the window, so long indeed that Maizie feared she was lost to all materialities. Suzanna, wonderful one, who could strike from dull stuff magic dreams; who could vivify and gloriously color the little things of life; who could into the simplest happenings read thrilling interpretations! What bliss to accompany her upon her wanderings, and what sadness to be forgotten!

Indeed Suzanna seemed oblivious. Certainly in spirit she was absent and at last Maizie could bear the silence no longer.

"Suzanna!" she cried.

Then Suzanna turned. She did not speak, however, but placed a warning finger upon her lips. Then she went swiftly to the closet and took down her best white dress. She laid it tenderly on the back of a chair till she had found in the lowest bureau drawer her white stockings and slippers, then she brushed and combed her hair, confined it lightly with a length of ribbon, washed her hands and face in the little bowl which stood in one corner near the window and leisurely donned the white dress.

Maizie sat straight up in bed watching in amazement. At last Suzanna glanced over at her little wistful sister, then in stately fashion advanced toward the bed, till close to Maizie she paused. Tall and slender she stood, with eyes amber-colored, eyes which turned to black in moments of deep emotion. Her brown hair touched with copper sprang back from her brow in waving grace; her delicate features called for small attention, excepting her mouth which was softly curved, eager of speech, grave, mutinous, the most expressive part of an expressive face.

Suzanna danced through life, sang her way to the hearts of others, left her touch wherever she went; yet, beneath the lightness, philosophies of life formed themselves intuitively, one after another, truer perhaps in their findings than those which filtered through the pure intellect of the grown-up.

At length she spoke to Maizie. "You mustn't say anything to me, Maizie, unless I ask you a question," she commanded, "because I'm a princess who lives in a crystal palace in a wonderful country with oceans and mountains."

Maizie did not reply; what could she say? Simply she stared as Suzanna moved gracefully about the room with the slow movements she considered fitting a princess.

At last she returned to the bed. She began: "Maizie, I wish you to rise, dress thyself, then go into thy parents' room and if the baby is awake, dress him as Suzanna, thy sister, did when she was here and not a princess."

Maizie rose and obediently dressed herself, ever watchful of Suzanna and thrilled by the new personality which seemed to have entered with the princess....