“With a great price ($2.00) obtained I This Freedom!”
CHAPTER I
Rosalie’s first impression was that her father owned the world. Extraordinary father! Wonderful father! Wonderful, wonderful father! There he is bounding across a field before a bull. Wonderful bull! There is father. There is the bull. Two theres. One after the other. The bull there after father there. Wonderful theres! Entrancing theres!
Did her mother ever bound before a bull? Never. Her father was the only bounder in the family—except her two brothers. All men were bounders. Wonderful, mysterious, entrancing men! Wonderful, wonderful men!
Mother—how different! Taught all the children until each child was eight, at her knee. “The Child’s Bible,” expurgated, hymns—“I kneed thee every hour.” Various methods of knee-teaching. For “Child’s Bible,” on the knee, her arm around you. For hymns, at the knee, your hands behind you. For deportment, across the knee, her hand upraised.
CHAPTER II
School. Head-mistress, Mrs. Impact—ominous name! Second in command, Miss Ouch—natural sequence! Then Miss Keggs—also eponymous, as we shall see.
So she grew up—twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years old. In just that order. No twelve, fourteen, thirteen, fifteen, seventeen, sixteen irregularity. A precise arithmetical sequence—forecast of mathematical abilities almost unfeminine.
She is eight years older than when she was nine. Eight added to nine makes—ninety-eight?—No, seventeen. Surely, seventeen. There can be no doubt about it, especially in the case of a young girl like Rosalie. Absurd to doubt it. Seventeen. Be sure of that.