That year when Christmas came Papa gave her a red book with a gold
holly wreath on the cover. The wreath was made out of three words: _The
Children's Prize_, printed in letters that pretended to be holly
sprigs. Inside the holly wreath was the number of the year, in fat gold
letters: 1869.
Soon after Christmas she had another birthday. She was six years old.
She could write in capitals and count up to a hundred if she were left
to do it by herself. Besides "Gentle Jesus," she could say "Cock-Robin"
and "The House that Jack Built," and "The Lord is my Shepherd" and "The
Slave in the Dismal Swamp." And she could read all her own story books,
picking out the words she knew and making up the rest. Roddy never made
up. He was a big boy, he was eight years old.
The morning after her birthday Roddy and she were sent into the
drawing-room to Mamma. A strange lady was there. She had chosen the
high-backed chair in the middle of the room with the Berlin wool-work
parrot on it. She sat very upright, stiff and thin between the twisted
rosewood pillars of the chair. She was dressed in a black gown made of
a great many little bands of rough crape and a few smooth stretches of
merino. Her crape veil, folded back over her hat, hung behind her head
in a stiff square. A jet necklace lay flat and heavy on her small
chest. When you had seen all these black things she showed you,
suddenly, her white, wounded face.
Mamma called her Miss Thompson.
Miss Thompson's face was so light and thin that you thought it would
break if you squeezed it. The skin was drawn tight over her jaw and the
bridge of her nose and the sharp naked arches of her eye-bones. She
looked at you with mournful, startled eyes that were too large for
their lids; and her flat chin trembled slightly as she talked.
"This is Rodney," she said, as if she were repeating a lesson after
Mamma.
Rodney leaned up against Mamma and looked proud and handsome. She had
her arm round him, and every now and then she pressed it tighter to
draw him to herself.