"
"No, I daresay she doesn't." But sometimes father was more like a
friend than a parent, and that faint, unnoted stress was the only
sign he ever gave of what he knew about this Inspiration.
CHAPTER X
MISSY CANS THE COSMOS
As far back as Melissa Merriam could remember, she had lived with
her family in the roomy, rambling, white-painted house on Locust
Avenue. She knew intimately every detail of its being. She had, at
various points in her childhood, personally supervised the addition
of the ell and of the broad porch which ran round three sides of the
house, the transformation of an upstairs bedroom into a regular
bathroom with all the pleasing luxuries of modern plumbing, the
installation of hardwood floors into the "front" and "back"
parlours. She knew every mousehole in the cellar, every spider-web
and cracked window-pane in the fascinating attic. And the yard
without she also knew well: the friendly big elm which, whenever the
wind blew, tapped soft leafy fingers against her own window; the
slick green curves of the lawn; the trees best loved by the birds;
the morning-glories on the porch which resembled fairy church bells
ready for ringing, the mignonette in the flower-beds like fragrant
fairy plumes, and the other flowers--all so clever at growing up
into different shapes and colours when you considered they all came
from little hard brown seeds.
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