"Spring is SUCH an exciting time," thought Marigold blissfully, as she sprang out of bed and began to dress.
Grandmother and Mother had already begun breakfast - Grandmother, very stately and dignified as usual, with silvery hair and sharp steel-blue eyes, was looking displeased. She disapproved of this birthday picnic as much as she disapproved of Sylvia. She had so confidently expected that Marigold would get over this Sylvia- nonsense when she went to school. But Marigold had been going to school for a year and seemed more besotted on Sylvia than ever.
"We'll have to tell her to-day that you're going to the sanitarium to-morrow," said Grandmother.
"Oh, not to-day," implored Lorraine. "Let her have one more happy day. Not till the morning."
Lorraine had taken a bad cold in March and it "hung on." Aunt Marigold said there was nothing serious as yet but advised a couple of months in the sanitarium. She frightened Grandmother and Lorraine a good deal more than the latter's condition justified, but Aunt Marigold was wise in her day and generation. She knew Lorraine was tired out and run down. She knew she needed a real rest and that she would never get it at Cloud of Spruce or visiting among her relatives. And she knew she would never leave Marigold unless she were thoroughly frightened. So Aunt Marigold did it thoroughly.
"You are going in the afternoon to-morrow. That will give her very little time to get used to it."
"Oh, but not to-day," pleaded Mother. Grandmother yielded. You couldn't refuse the request of a woman who was going to the sanitarium next day, even if you did think it remarkably silly. And then Marigold came running in with her little wild-rose face all alight, and began to eat her porridge out of the dear little blue bowl she loved. Real porridge. Grandmother insisted on that. No imaginary porridges called "cereals" for Grandmother.
"Isn't it lovely that Sylvia's birthday is in June?" she said. "And she's just eight years old, too. Isn't that 'strornary? Why, it makes us pretty near twins, doesn't it, Mother? We're going to have such an elegant time to-day. After the picnic we're going to find that echo that lives 'way, 'way back in the hilly land."
"Don't you go so far away that you can't get back in time for dinner," said Grandmother. "You were late last Saturday."
Marigold looked rather scornfully at Grandmother. Didn't Grandmother understand that when you went through The Magic Door you stepped straight into fairyland, where there was no such thing as time?
"I think I'll be a little scared to go so far back," said Marigold confidentially to Mother. Marigold never minded admitting she was scared since the day of The Dog - The Dog that now, alas, belonged only to the beautiful far-off past. In the winter Mr. Plaxton had sold him to a man who lived over the bay. And Marigold, who had once wished he was dead, walked past Mr. Plaxton's door every school morning with an aching lump in her throat, hating Mr. Plaxton and missing woefully that friendly eager catapult of barks that had always hurled itself over the fence at her. God had answered her prayer after all - rather late, she thought very bitterly.
"I see one has to be careful what one prays for," was her opinion.
"But Sylvia won't be scared. Sylvia isn't afraid of anything. Why - " Marigold cast about for some statement to show how very brave Sylvia was - "why, she'd just as soon call the minister John as not, if she wanted to."
"You see," telegraphed Grandmother's steel-blue eyes. But Mother only laughed.
"What jam do you want in your tarts, dear? Plum or gooseberry?"
Marigold liked gooseberry best, but - "Oh, plum, Mother. Sylvia likes plum."
The lunch-basket was made up and Marigold trotted happily into the orchard room - and trotted back again.
"Please, where is the key of the orchard door?" she said.
"It's upstairs on my bureau," said Grandmother. "Go out of the side door."
Marigold looked reproachfully at Grandmother, wondering if when SHE got to be over seventy years old she would be so stupid.
"You know I HAVE to go through the orchard door, Grandmother. It's a Magic Door. None of the others are."
"Run upstairs and get the key for yourself, dear," said mother gently.
Grandmother sniffed, but looked rather pleased. An idea had just come to her.
Marigold, happily unconscious of Grandmother's idea, got the key and went through The Magic Door into The Land Where Wishes Come True - which unimaginative people called the old orchard. You went through the orchard and up the stone steps until you came to the Green Gate, about which grew the seven slim poplars that always turned into nymphs when she and Sylvia played there. Marigold opened the gate - shut her eyes - said The Rhyme - opened them. Yes, there was Sylvia with her floating dark hair and her dreamy eyes, her snow-white hands and feet among the fine, fair shadows of the poplars. Marigold sprang forward with a cry of joy.
"To think I once thought you were a plum-blossom bough!" she laughed.
2
Grandmother did not carry out her idea as soon as Mother had gone away. That would have been cruel and Grandmother was never cruel - intentionally. She must wait until Marigold recovered from the grief of Mother's going. At first Marigold thought she could never get over it. She was shocked the first day she laughed. She had not expected to be able to laugh again until Mother came home. But Sylvia did say such funny things. And a letter came from Mother every day - such a dear, jolly, understanding letter. Then -
"Grandmother, please, can I have the key of The Magic Door?" asked Marigold one morning.
Grandmother looked at her with cold eyes.
"I have locked that door and it is to remain locked," she said deliberately. "I find that I often forget to lock it at night, and that is very dangerous."
"But, Grandmother," exclaimed Marigold, "I MUST have the key. You KNOW I can't see Sylvia unless I go that way."
"Then you must get along without seeing her," said Grandmother immovably.
Marigold did not plead or coax. She knew quite well that no pleading would avail with Grandmother - who had been "one of the stubborn Blaisdells," as Salome said, before she married into the Lesley clan. But she went away with eyes that were stripped of laughter. Grandmother gazed after her triumphantly. This would put an end to all nonsense.
It did. Marigold made one effort to find Sylvia. She went out through the hall door, up the orchard and through the Green Gate. She shut her eyes - said The Rhyme - opened them.
There was no Sylvia.
Marigold crept back to the house - a pathetic, defeated little figure.
For a week Marigold moped - so Grandmother termed it. Grandmother was very good to her. She let her help cook - Salome being away on one of her rare vacations - shell lovely walnuts with kinkly meats, seed raisins, slice citron peel; even - oh, bliss of happier days! - beat eggs. But Marigold seemed interested in nothing. She sat about a great deal in a big chair on the veranda, looking out on the harbour, with a smileless little face.
One night Grandmother discovered that Marigold had gone to bed without saying her prayers. Horrified, Grandmother made Marigold get right up and say them. But when Marigold got into bed again she looked at Grandmother with sad, defiant eyes.
"My soul didn't pray a bit," she said.
When another week had passed, Grandmother began to worry about Marigold. All was not well with the child. She was growing thin and pale.