"Mamma," her voice directed upward toward the open register, "can I—may
I go out on my tricycle?"
"No."
"I've only ten minutes yet, mamma. I'll make them up to-morrow."
"No, I don't intend to pay Miss Lee fifty cents a lesson so you can go out and ride on your tricycle. You bothered me for the lessons, so now you practice. Work on 'Narcissus' so you can play it for your father to-night."
"Oh, mom, please."
"I don't care. Go! Only put on your hat and don't let me see you riding around on Taylor Avenue."
"No'm."
CHAPTER III
The St. Louis of Lilly's little girlhood, sprung so thrivingly from the left bank of the Mississippi and builded on the dead mounds of a dead past, was even then inexplicably turning its back to its fine river frontage; stretching in the form of a great adolescent giant, prone, legs flung to the west and full of growing pains, arms outstretched and curving downward in a great north-and-south yawn.
Taylor Avenue (then almost the city's edge, and which now is a girdle worn high about its gigantic middle) petered out into violently muddy and unmade streets and great patches of unimproved vacant lots that in winter were gaunt with husks.