Then the priest smiled, and said: "All right, Jerry. In five years you'll be a millionaire. Now, Cecilia, I want to hear a piece." Cecilia sat down to play "The Shepherd Boy." Her fingers trembled so that it wasn't as good as usual, but the priest was pleased. Then she left, and wiped the rest of the dishes for Norah. Norah said that the priest was a "swell talker" and that she hadn't minded the extra work.
Cecilia went up to bed very happy. She slipped out of her pink silk dress and hung it in the closet. As she reached up, a hat, all over bobbing roses, slid from the closet shelf to the floor. Cecilia's smile faded. She put it back, and shut the door.
CHAPTER III
THE FIRST STEP INTO CANAAN
Cecilia stood in her bedroom in the new house. The paper in her bedroom was pink and hung in panels. At the top of each panel was a hip-diseased, and goitered cupid, who threw roses around,—roses that looked like frozen cabbages, and stuck in the air as if they'd been glued there. Father Madden had picked out the paper as a surprise for Celie. When she had seen it she had gasped and then kissed him very hard. He had said, "There, Celie, I knew you'd like it."
After he had gone Cecilia had looked around and said, "Oh, dear—Oh, dear!" Roses always had made her sick, and even to Cecilia, the paper was "pretty bad." And Cecilia had kissed him hard and said she loved it.
Some one tapped on the door.
"Come," said Cecilia.
"Father McGowan's down," said Norah with a point of her finger over her left shoulder. "An' the man's down with doughnuts, too." Cecilia laughed. Norah's mode of announcement always made people sound diseased. Cecilia had a mental picture of a man in the throes of doughnuts—with them breaking out all over his person.
"You can take a dozen and a half," said Cecilia, referring to the doughnut-man, "because Johnny likes them so."