And she was familiar with the
summerhouse back in the corner of the yard, so ineffably delicious
in rambler-time, but so bleakly sad in winter; and the chicken-yard
just beyond she knew, too--Missy loved that peculiar air of
placidity which pervades even the most clucky and cackly of chicken-
yards, and she loved the little downy chicks which were so adept at
picking out their own mothers amongst those hens that looked all
alike. When she was a little girl she used to wonder whether the
mothers grieved when their children grew up and got killed and eaten
and, for one whole summer, she wouldn't eat fried chicken though it
was her favourite delectable.
All of which means that Missy, during the seventeen years of her
life, had never found her homely environment dull or unpleasing.
But, this summer, she found herself longing, with a strange, secret
but burning desire, for something "different."
The feeling had started that preceding May, about the time she made
such an impression at Commencement with her Valedictory entitled
"Ships That Pass in the Night." The theme of this oration was the
tremendous influence that can trail after the chancest and briefest
encounter of two strangers.
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