Dulcie agreed she was.
Felicia shook her head.
"It's only the frock, Nor'. I'll lend it to you, I can't quite give it to you, I love it so—but you shall have a really model—we'll manage somehow—and you shall paint the frock—that's what's paintable—"
Of course in the end she didn't refuse him. She never refused them anything she could possibly manage, but it was rather difficult to find the time. She never knew exactly how she found it.
It was in the "paintable" green dress that she "pretended" her way to fame and it came about this way. Without actually realizing it she was getting accustomed to a fairly large audience on the Sunday afternoons when she whistled for the Wheezy's friends. They were so eager to hear her and their chance visitors were so numerous that the Matron arranged for her to do her "pretending" in the chapel hall at the front of the Home. And it was there that an enthusiastic member of the May Day committee chanced to hear her, one sunshiny April Day, an enterprising member who bluntly asked Felicia Day if she wouldn't "pretend" for the May Day program at the Academy of Music. It didn't occur to Felicia to make excuses, especially when the committee member explained things a bit. The only thing at which she balked at all was when the energetic person murmured, "Name please?"
"I'm not—anybody—" explained Felicia, "I'm not even sure myself who
I am—"
"But we have to have a name to print on the program—"
This was the first time that anybody who'd been asked to appear hadn't eagerly supplied much information as to middle initials!
"Vairee well," suggested Felicia, "we shall make up a name. I shall be called Madame Folie—no, Mademoiselle Folly—will that suit? Then if it has been a mistake to put me on your program that will be a small joke, eh?"
It looked very well indeed, "Vairee business-like"—