Little Miss By-The-Day | Page 8

he vowed he hated France and the French and all their
ways. She was taught to curtsy and to dance because it pleased him to
have a woman walk well and he believed dancing kept the figure
supple. She was taught needlework because he thought it seemly for a
woman to sew and he liked the line of the head and neck bent over an
embroidery frame. She was taught to knit because he remembered that
his mother had told him that delicate finger tips were daintily polished
by an hour's knitting a day. He was--though he wouldn't have admitted
it--proud of her slender hands--they looked exactly as his wife's had
looked. It was the only trait she had inherited from that particular
ancestor and he had been inordinately vain of his wife's hands.
Mademoiselle had been ordered never to let the child "spread her hand
by opening door knobs or touching the fire-stones--or--er-- any clumsy
thing--" and it was droll to see the little girl, digging in her bit of garden
with those lovely hands incased in long flopping cotton gloves--not to
forget the broad sunbonnet that shaded her earnest little face. In short,
he was jealous of her complexion and her manners--But beyond that
and the desire that she absolutely efface herself, he did not concern
himself with his granddaughter.
It was really her mother's gentle tact that fostered love for the stern old
man. While Felice was still young, Octavia began to teach her child
pride of race. The pretty invalid was pathetically eager to have Felice
impressed with the dignity of Major Trenton's family.

"If you look over the dining-room fireplace you can see how fine his
father was--"
So the child stared up the stately panelled wall at the gloomy old
portrait of Judge Trenton with his much curled wig and black satin
gown and the stiff scroll of vellum with fat be-ribboned seals attached
and asked naively,
"If your father was a judge-man why aren't we judge-mens?" Grandy
laughed his short, hard laugh.
"Oh, because we've gone straight to the dogs--and very small
bow-wows at that--"
It was about this time that Octavia began to teach Felice to play chess.
The child hated it. It must have taken a sort of magnificent patience to
teach her. For a long time no one save Mademoiselle D'Ormy had
known what a struggle it meant for that gay little invalid to make
herself lovely for that afternoon hour over the chess board. Yet, when
the Major entered he would always find his daughter smiling from her
heap of gay rose-colored cushions, her thin hair curled prettily under
her lace cap and her hand extended for his courteous kiss. They were
almost shyly formal with each other, those two, while Mademoiselle
D'Ormy screwed the tilt table into place and brought the ebony box of
carved chess men. It was leaning forward to move the men that took so
much strength. Octavia was too proud to admit how weak she was
growing. So she coaxed her small daughter,
"It will be a little stupid at first, Cherie, but we will try to make it
go--and think what fun it will be that day when we tell the Major, 'It is
Felice and not stupid old Octavia who is going to play with you.' First
you shall learn where to move the pieces and how to tell me what
Grandy has moved--then, we shall tie a handkerchief over my eyes--as
we do when you and I play hide the thimble--my hands shall not touch
the men at all. I shall say 'Pawn to Queen's Rook's square' and you shall
put this little man here--this is the Queen's Rook's square--" It must
have been the oddest game in the world, really, between that stern old
man and the blindfolded invalid and the grave little girl who was

learning to play. Of course it was easier for Octavia--she didn't have to
move her hands or keep her eyes open. She could lie lower on the
pillows--she smiled--a wavering smile when her father's triumphant
"Check!" would ring out.
"Alas, Felice!" she would murmur gaily, "are we not stupid! Together
we can't checkmate him--" They talked a great deal about chess. And
how you can't expect to do so much with pawns and how you mustn't
mind if you lose them. But how carefully you must guard the queen--or
else you'll lose your king--and how if "You just learn a little day by day
soon you'll have a gambit," and how "even if you don't care much about
doing the silly game, you like it because you know that it gives Grandy
much happiness."
It was in those days that Felice learned that not only must she keep very
happy herself but she must keep other