Across the street Delia was sitting on the gate-post, ostentatiously eating chocolate layer cake, and with her free hand twisting into a curl the end of her short braid. Between us there seemed to have revealed itself a gulf, life-wide. Had Delia always known about me? Did the Rodman girls know? And Calista? The four Eversleys must know—this was why they laughed so.... But I remember how, most of all, I hoped that Mary Elizabeth did not know—yet.
From that day I faced the truth: I was different. I was somehow not really-truly. And it seemed to me that nothing could ever be done about it.
VII
THE PRINCESS ROMANCIA
That night I could not go to sleep with the knowledge. If only I, as I am now, might have sat on the edge of the bed and told a story to me as I was then! I am always wishing that we two might have known each other—I as I am now and I as I was then. We should have been so much more interested in each other than anybody else could ever be. I can picture us looking curiously at each other through the dark, and each would have wished to be the other—how hard we would have wished that. But neither of us would have got it, as sometimes happens with wishes.
Looking back on that night, and knowing how much I wanted to be like the rest, I think this would be the story that I, as I am now, would have told that Little Me.
Once upon a time to the fairy king and queen there was born a little daughter. And the king, being a modern fairy, determined to invite to the christening of his daughter twelve mortals—a thing never before countenanced in fairy ceremony. And of course all unreal people are always very particular about their ceremonies being just so.
It was a delicate and difficult task to make out that mortal invitation list, for it was very hard to find in the world twelve human beings who, at a fairy party, would exactly fit in. After long thought and consultation with all his ministers and councillors, the king made out the following list:—
A child; a poet; a scientist; a carpenter; a prophet; an artist; an artisan; a gardener; a philosopher; a woman who was also a mother; a man who was also a father; and a day labourer.