Missy shook her head. She longed to retrieve herself in the public gaze, longed to shine as Tess shone, but not for worlds could she have essayed that high, dizzy seat again. So she shook her head dumbly and Arthur grinned at her not unkindly. Missy liked Arthur Simpson. He wore a big blue-denim apron and had red hair and freckles—not a romantic figure by any means; but there was a mischievous imp in his eye and a rollicking lilt in his voice that made you like him, anyway. Missy wished he hadn't been a witness to her predicament. Not that she felt at all sentimental toward Arthur. Arthur “went with” Genevieve Hicks, a girl whom Missy privately deemed frivolous and light-minded. Besides Missy herself was, at this time, interested in Raymond Bonner, the handsomest boy in “the crowd.” Missy liked good looks—they appealed to the imagination or something. And she adored everything that appealed to the imagination: there was, for instance, the picture of Sir Galahad, in shining armour, which hung on the wall of her room—for a time she had almost said her prayers to that picture; and there was a compelling mental image of the gallant Sir Launcelot in “Idylls of the King” and of the stern, repressed, silently suffering Guy in “Airy Fairy Lilian.” Also there had recently come into her possession a magazine clipping of the boy king of Spain; she couldn't claim that Alphonso was handsome—in truth he was quite ugly—yet there was something intriguing about him. She secretly treasured the printed likeness and thought about the original a great deal: the alluring life he led, the panoply of courts, royal balls and garden-parties and resplendent military parades, and associating with princes and princesses all the time. She wondered, with a little sigh, whether his “crowd” called him by his first name; though a King he was just a boy—about her own age.
Nevertheless, though Arthur Simpson was neither handsome nor revealed aught which might stir vague, deep currents of romance, Missy regretted that even Arthur had seen her in such a sorry plight. She wished he might see her at a better advantage. For instance, galloping up on a spirited mount, in a modish riding-habit—a checked one with flaring-skirted coat and shining boots and daring but swagger breeches, perhaps!—galloping insouciantly up to take that dare!
But she knew it was an empty dream. Even if she had the swagger togs—a notion mad to absurdity—she could never gallop with insouciance. She wasn't the athletic sort.
At supper she was still somewhat bitterly ruminating her failings.
“Missy, you're not eating your omelet,” adjured her mother.
Missy's eyes came back from space.
“I was just wondering—” then she broke off.
“Yes, dear,” encouraged mother. Missy's hazy thoughts took a sudden plunge, direct and startling.
“I was wondering if, maybe, you'd give me an old pair of father's trousers.”
“What on earth for, child?”