Breakfast the next morning was nearly concluded when Suzanna made her appearance, but she met with no reproof. She had anticipated none, for surely an Only Child was entitled to many privileges; no rules should be made to bind her.

Her father was gone. It was a day of stock-taking at the hardware store, and his early presence had been requested by his employer, Job Doane. Suzanna's mother and the children still lingered at the table.

"Good morning, Suzanna," said Mrs. Procter, while the other children gazed with interest at their tardy sister.

"Good morning," Suzanna returned as she took her place; then, "Will you remind Maizie that I am an Only Child today?"

"You hear, Maizie," said Mrs. Procter smiling.

"Mustn't any of us speak to her?" asked Peter.

"No one but her mother," said Suzanna addressing the ceiling.

She went on with her breakfast, eating daintily with the small finger on her right hand cocked outward. Maizie stared, fascinated. Countless words rushed to her lips, but she had been bidden to silence, and she feared, should she speak to Suzanna, dire results would follow. Suzanna might even go away by herself in pursuit of some wonderful dream, and leave Maizie out of her scheme of things entirely.

So Maizie waited patiently.

"Since you sent Bridget away on an errand of mercy, Mother," Suzanna began later, "I'll help you with the dishes."

In Suzanna's estimation the family boasting an Only Child boasted also servants.

"I'll be glad of your help," said Mrs. Procter, "and since Bridget is away, perhaps you will be kind enough to make your own bed and dust your own room."

Suzanna's face fell. Maizie put out a small hand and touched her sister. "I'll help you," she said, "if you want me to."

"Very well," said Suzanna, and together the children went upstairs.

In the little room shared by the sisters, Suzanna went to work. Ardently she shook pillows and carefully she smoothed sheets, while Maizie, with a reflective eye ever upon Suzanna, dusted the dresser and hung up the clothes.

"Is your mother well this morning?" asked Suzanna politely.

"Why, you saw her," Maizie cried off guard. "She didn't have a headache this morning, did she?"

"I'm speaking of your mother," said Suzanna. "You belong to an entirely different family from me."

"Well," said Maizie after a time, "she's not suffering, thank you."

"Have you any brothers and sisters?" pursued Suzanna in an interested though rather aloof tone.

"Oh, yes," said Maizie, trying hard to fill her rÔle satisfactorily. "We have a very large family, and once we had twins."

Suzanna looked her pity. "I'm so glad," she said, "that I'm an Only Child. This morning I was very joyous when I had whipped cream and oatmeal."

"You just had syrup, Suzanna Procter!" cried Maizie.

Suzanna cast a scathing look at her sister: "I had whipped cream!" she cried, "because I am an Only Child!" Then falling into her natural tone: "If you forget again, Maizie, I can't even be a friend of yours." She continued after a pause, reassuming her Only-Child voice, "That's why I wear this beautiful satin dress and diamond bracelets and shining buckles on my shoes."

Now Maizie saw only Suzanna's lawn dress, rather worn Sunday shoes with patent leather tips; she saw Suzanna's bare arms.

"Maybe you'd like, really, to wear a white satin dress and bracelets and buckles, but you know you haven't got them, don't you, Suzanna?" she asked.

Suzanna did not answer, plainly ignoring Maizie's conciliatory tone, and so finding the silence continuing unbroken, Maizie changed the subject.

"Will you play school with me this afternoon, Suzanna?"

Suzanna thought a moment: "I don't just know. I may go and play with some of the other girls today, and, remember, if I do that a friend can't get mad like a sister can."

Maizie began to whimper.

"All right, if you're going to act that way, I am going off to see Drusilla," with which statement Suzanna turned and went downstairs.

Maizie came running down after her. "Mother, mother," she called loudly, "I don't like Suzanna when she's the Only Child."

Mrs. Procter, busy with the baby, looked up. She was a little cross now. "I wish, Suzanna," she said, "that you would learn to be sensible and not always be acting in plays you make up."

Suzanna, who a moment before had bounded joyfully into her mother's presence, now paused, the light dying from her eyes. She looked at her mother and her mother, uncomfortable beneath the steady gaze, spoke again with an irritation partially assumed.

"I mean just that, Suzanna," she said. "Maizie can't easily follow all your imaginings; and I have enough to do without always trying to keep the peace between you."

Suzanna stood perfectly still. The color rose to her temples, while the dark eyes flashed. Waves of emotion swept through her. Emotions she could not express. At last in a tense voice she spoke: "I wish I wasn't your child, Mother."

"Go at once to your room," said Mrs. Procter, "and stay there till I tell you you may come down again."

With no word Suzanna turned, went slowly up the stairs again, drew a chair to the window and sat down. She was flaming under a bitter sense of injustice. With all the intensity of her nature for the moment she hated the entire world.

Time passed. She heard sounds downstairs, Maizie going out to play in the yard with Peter; her mother singing the baby to sleep, and still Suzanna sat near the window, and still her small heart beat resentfully.

Later, she heard her father's voice. Perhaps he cared for her. But even of this she was not sure. Then she sat up very straight. Someone was coming up the stairs.

It was Maizie. The little girl slowly opened the bedroom door, peeped cautiously in, and then on tiptoes approached Suzanna. "Mother says," she began, "that you're to come down to lunch."

"I don't want any lunch," said Suzanna. The bright color still stained her cheek. "You can just go downstairs and eat up everything in the house, and be sure and tell mother I said so."

Maizie looked her awe at this defiant sister. Downstairs she returned to deliver verbatim Suzanna's message.

Suzanna sat on. From bitter disillusion felt against everything in her world her mind chilled to analysis. Her mother loved her, she believed, and yet—she did not complete her swift thought; indeed, she looked quickly about in fear of her disloyalty. She had once thought that mothers were perfect, rare beings removed worlds from other mere mortals. Hadn't she, when a very small girl of four, been quite unable to comprehend that mother was a mere human being? "Mother is just mother," she had said in her baby way, and that sentence spelled all the devotion and admiration of a pure little heart for one enshrined within it.

And now mother had fallen short. Mother had disappointed that desperately loving, intense soul. The tears started to her eyes. It was as though on this second tucked-in day an epoch had come marking the day for all time, placing it by itself as containing an experience never to be forgotten.

After a time she realized she was hungry. So she went quietly to the top of the stairs, but no sound came up from below.

Some clock struck one, and then Suzanna heard running footsteps mounting the stairs. She sat straight and gazed out of the window. She knew the moment her mother entered the room, but she did not turn her head.

Mrs. Procter approached until she stood close to Suzanna. She looked down into the mutinous little face. She had come intending to scold, but something electric about the child kept hasty words back.

At length: "Aren't you going to speak to me, Suzanna?" she said.

Suzanna did not answer immediately. That strange, awful thought that her very own mother had been unjustly irritable held her tongue-tied. At length words, short, curt, came:

"You weren't all right to me this morning, Mother," she said, raising her stormy eyes. "Yesterday you were nice to me when I was a princess. Today you were cross because Maizie couldn't understand, and she never understands. You never were cross about that before." She gazed straight back into her mother's face—"I'm mad at the whole world."

What perfection the child expects of the mother! No human deviations! Mrs. Procter sighed. How could she live out her child's exalted ideal of her! She looked helplessly at Suzanna. The eyes lifted to hers lacked the wonted expression of perfect belief, of passionate admiration. That this first little daughter, so close to her heart fibers, should in any degree turn from her, pierced the mother. She put her arms about the unyielding small figure.

"Suzanna, little daughter," she whispered. "Mother is sometimes tired, but always, always she loves you."

The response was immediate. With a little cry Suzanna pressed her lips to her mother's. All her reticence was gone. This mother who enfolded her stood once more the unwavering star that guided Suzanna's life.

"You see, little girl," Mrs. Procter said after a few moments, "mother sometimes has a great deal to think about—and baby was cross."

"Oh, mother, dear, I'll help you," cried Suzanna. "I'll always be good to you and when I'm grown up I'll buy you silk dresses and pretty hats and take you to hear beautiful music."

Later they went downstairs together. In the kitchen Maizie was amusing the baby as he sat in his high chair. She looked around as Suzanna entered: "Are you going to see Drusilla now," asked Maizie.

"Who's Drusilla?" asked Mrs. Procter with interest.

Now Suzanna had not told her mother of her new friend. She had wished to keep in character, and a princess, she felt, was rather secretive and aloof. But now the renewed closeness she felt to her mother opened her heart.

"Yesterday when I was a princess, living my very own first tucked-in day, I walked and walked, and at last came to a little house with a garden," she said, "and there was an old lady with no one to call her by her first name—and so I'm going to call her Drusilla."

"Is she a little old lady with white hair, and curls on each side of her face?" asked Mrs. Procter.

"Yes," said Suzanna.

"Why, she's Mr. Graham Woods Bartlett's mother, and she's a little—" Mrs. Procter hesitated believing it wiser to leave her sentence unfinished.

"A little what, mother?" asked Suzanna anxiously.

"Oh, she has fancies," evaded Mrs. Procter. "For instance, there are times when she thinks herself a queen."

"What was the word you were going to use, mother?" persisted Suzanna.

"Well, then, Suzanna, such a person is called a little strange."

"Then I'm a little strange, too," said Suzanna.

"But you're a child, Suzanna," said Mrs. Procter, "and Mrs. Bartlett is a very old lady."

"Does that make the difference?" asked Suzanna. "If it does, I can't understand why. I think that an old lady, especially if she's lonely and if she grieves for her king who went far away from her, has just as much right to have fancies as a little girl has."

"Well, I don't know," said Mrs. Procter, turning a soft look upon Suzanna.

Maizie, who had been standing near listening intently, now spoke: "A girl I know had a grandfather who thought he was a cat and every once in awhile he meowed, and he liked to sit in the sun. He thought he was a nice, gentle, Maltese cat, and when he wasn't busy meowing he was awful sweet to the children, and played with them and took care of the little ones; but the big people thought they'd better send him far away, because it wasn't right that he should think himself a cat."

Suzanna's eyes flamed in anger. "I think they were cruel," she cried, "not to let him stay at home. I know the girl whose grandfather he was. Her name's Mary Holmes, and she cried because they sent her grandfather away. But she didn't tell me why."

"I'm her special friend on Wednesday recess day," said Maizie bashfully, "that's why she told me."

"I like old people," Suzanna continued. "I like Drusilla, and I like Mrs. Reynold's mother that once came to see her, and I like old Joe, the vegetable man, who made whistles for us last summer. They all seem to understand you when you talk to them, and they can see things just like you can."

"Well, I've heard it said," said Mrs. Procter musingly, "that old people are very much like the young in their fancies. Maybe that's why you enjoy them, Suzanna."

"Well, mother," Suzanna was very much in earnest now, "can't you always tell everybody who has an old lady or an old gentleman living with them that if they're not loving to old ladies and gentlemen, their silver chain will break?"

"Silver chain?" cried Maizie, puzzled. "I don't know what you mean, Suzanna."

"Why, every one of us," Suzanna explained carefully, "carries a little silver chain which binds him to everyone else, but especially, I suppose, to our very own father and mother and brothers and sisters."

"Where is the chain?" asked Maizie.

"It runs from your wrist to mine. It stretches as you move, and it's given to everybody as soon as he's born. Sometimes it's broken."

"Well, Suzanna," said Maizie solemnly, "then you've broken the silver chain that ties you to me and to Peter and the baby and to daddy and mother. You don't belong to us any more—you're an Only Child."

Maizie's literalness drew a new vivid picture for Suzanna. She had cut herself from those she loved. She looked through a mist into Maizie's face, the little face with the gray eyes and straight fine hair that would lie flat to the little head, and a big love flooded her. She went swiftly to the little sister and lifted her hand. She made a feint of clasping something at her wrist. "Maizie," she said, "I put the chain on again. You are once more my little sister."

"Not just your closest friend, but your little sister, with a silver chain holding us together?" Maizie asked.

"Always," said Suzanna. "I don't think after all that it's any fun to be an Only Child."