She felt within her the grace of stately
beauties, the heartbeat of dew-jewelled fairies, the longings of
untrammelled butterflies--dancing, she could have flown up to heaven
at that moment! A gurgle of sound interrupted her; it was the baby.
"Do you like me, baby?" she cried. "Am I beautiful, baby?"
Baby, now, could talk quite presentably in the language of grown-
ups. But in addition he knew all kinds of wise, unintelligible
words. Missy knew that they were wise, even though she could not
understand their meaning, and she was glad the baby chose, this
time, to answer in that secret jargon.
She kissed the baby and, in return, the baby smiled his secret
smile. Missy was sure that Poppy then smiled too, a secret smile; so
she kissed Poppy also. How wonderful, how mysterious, were the
smiles of baby and Poppy! What unknown thoughts produced them?
At this point her cogitations were interrupted and her playacting
spoiled by the unexpected return of mother and Aunt Nettie. It
seemed that certain of the ladies had obligingly been "out."
"What in the world are you doing, Missy?" asked mother.
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