Not just a Lady here and there, coming to visit with hats on, to talk a little to the Sisters, to look at the little girls with blue checked aprons on. But here they were coming and going all the time, moving about, and living in the cabins, walking everywhere with or without hats on, standing on the gray cliffs, and looking down—maybe into the heart of a worldwide violet there, off the edge of the cliff, such as Bessie Bell saw or fancied she saw.
So many Ladies.
Bessie Bell leaned against the little fluted post of the gallery to the cabin that she and Sister Helen Vincula lived in, and decided to herself that, strange as it was, yet was it true that the whole world was full of—Ladies.
There were yet stranger things for Bessie Bell to learn.
She had not for long played with those many little girls in all sorts of clothes, and with larger girls, and with boys,—some with short-striped-stocking-legs and some with long-striped-stocking-legs,—before she heard one child say: "Mama says she will take me to Sweet Fern Cave to-morrow."
Or perhaps it was another child who said: "Mama won't let me wade in the branch."
Or another child said: "Mama says I can have a party for all the little girls and boys on the mountain next Friday!"
Then another little child said: "My Mama has made me a beautiful pink dress, and I will wear that to your party."
Mama? My Mama?
Bessie Bell leaned against the little fluted post of the gallery to the cabin where she and Sister Helen Vincula lived, and thought a great deal about that.