When I Was a Little Girl/Chapter 7

←

Chapter 6

When I Was a Little Girl (1913)
by Zona Gale, illustrated by Agnes Pelton

Chapter VII: The Princess Romancia

Chapter 8

→

4604962When I Was a Little Girl — Chapter VII: The Princess Romancia1913Zona Gale

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 Page:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/139 "My dear," said the king, "some day you will understand that, and many other things as well."

The christening room was a Vasty Hall, whose deep blue ceiling was as high as the sky and as strange as night. Lamps, dim as the stars, hung very high, and there was one silver central chandelier, globed like the moon, and there were frescoes like clouds. The furnishings of the Vasty Hall were most magnificent. There were pillars like trees spreading out into capitals of intricate and leafy design. Lengths of fair carpet ran here and there, as soft and shining as little streams; there were thick rugs as deep as moss, seats of native carved stone, and tapes- tries as splendid as vistas curtaining the dis- tance. And the music was like the music of All-night, all done at once.

To honour the occasion the fairy guests had all come dressed as something else- for by now, of course, the fairies are copying many human fashions. One was disguised as a Butterfly with her own wings prettily painted. One rep- resented a Rose, and she could hardly be dis- tinguished from an American Beauty. One was made up as a Light, whom nobody could recPage:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/141 Page:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/142 Page:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/143 while she wore it; a gazing crystal which would enable the princess to see one hundred times as much as anybody else saw; certain sea secrets and sea spells; a lyre which played itself; a flask containing a draught which should keep the princess young; a vial of colours which hardly anyone ever sees; flowers and grasses and leaves which could be used almost like a dictionary to spell out other things; an assortment of wonderful happy fancies of every variety; a new rainbow; a box of picture cards of the world, every one of which should come true if one only went far enough; and a tapestry of the universe, wrapped around a brand-new idea in a box.

When these things had been graciously ac- cepted by the king, there was a stir in the com- pany, and sweeping into its midst came another Human Being, one who thought that she had every right to be invited to the christening, but who had not been invited. All the fairies shrank back, for it was an extraordinary-looking Human Being. She was tall and lithe and wore a sparkling gown, and her face had the look of many cities, and now it was like the painted cover of an empty box, and all the time it had the meaning only of those who never look Page:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/145 Page:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/146 Page:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/147 Page:When I Was a Little Girl (1913).djvu/148

Little by little she grew silent and refused to join in the games.

When I Was a Little Girl/Chapter 7

Navigation menu

Search