"Have a good time, honey-child," whispered Mother. "Why not ask Sylvia down to tea with you? There are doughnuts in the cellar crock and plenty of hop-and-go-fetch-its."
But Marigold did not brighten to this. For the first time she felt a vague discontent with Sylvia, her fairy-playmate of three dream- years.
"I ALMOST wish I had a real little girl to play with," she said, as she stood at the gate, watching Grandmother and Mother and Salome drive off up the road - all packed tightly in the buggy. Poor Mother, as Marigold knew, had to sit on the narrow edge of nothing.
2
Perhaps this WAS a Magic Day. Perhaps the dark mind of the Witch of Endor, sitting on the gate post, brewed up some kind of spell. Who knows? At all events, when Marigold turned to look down the other road - the road that ran along the harbour shore to the big Summer Hotel by the dunes - there was the wished-for little girl standing by her very elbow and grinning at her.
Marigold stared in amazement. She had never seen the girl before or any one just like her. The stranger was about her own age - possibly a year older. With ivory outlines, a wide red mouth, long narrow green eyes and little dark eyebrows like wings. Bareheaded, with blue-black hair. Beautifully bobbed, as Marigold instantly perceived with a sigh. She wore an odd, smart green dress with touches of scarlet embroidery and she had wonderful slim white hands - very beautiful and very white. Marigold glanced involuntarily at her own sunburned little paws - and felt ashamed. But - the stranger had BARE KNEES. Marigold had never seen this fashion before and she was as much horrified as Grandmother herself could have been.
Who could this girl be? She had appeared so suddenly, so uncannily. She looked different in every way from the Harmony little girls.
"Who are you?" she asked abruptly, before she realised that such a question was probably bad manners.
The stranger grinned.
"I'm me," she said.
Marigold turned haughtily away. A Lesley of Cloud of Spruce was not going to be made fun of by any little nobody from nowhere.
But the girl in green whirled about on tip-toes till she was in front of Marigold once more.
"I'm Princess Varvara," she said. "I'm staying at the hotel down there with Aunt Clara. My uncle is the Duke of Cavendish and Governor-General of Canada. He is visiting the Island and to-day they all went down to visit Cavendish, because it was called after my uncle's great-great-grandfather. All except Aunt Clara and me. She had a headache and they wouldn't take me because there are measles in Cavendish. I was so mad I ran away. I wanted to give Aunt Clara the scare of her life. She's mild and gentle as a kitten but, oh, such a darned tyrant. I can't call my soul my own. So when she went to bed with her headache I just slipped off when Olga was waiting on her. I'm going to do as I like for one day, anyhow. I'm fed up with being looked after. What's the matter?"
"You are telling me a lot of fibs," said Marigold. "You are not a princess. There are no princesses in Prince Edward Island. And you wouldn't be dressed like that if you were a princess."
Varvara laughed. There was some trick about her laugh. It made you want to laugh too. Marigold had hard work to keep from laughing. But she wouldn't laugh. You couldn't laugh when anybody was trying to deceive you with such yarns.
"She must be one of the Americans down at the hotel," thought Marigold. "And she thinks it fun to fool a silly little down- easter like me if she can. But she CAN'T! Imagine a princess having bare knees! Just like Lazarre's kids."
"How do you think a princess should be dressed?" demanded Varvara. "In a crown and a velvet robe. You're silly. I AM a Princess. My father was a Russian Prince and he was killed in The Terror. Mother is English. A sister of the Duke's. We live in England now, but I came out to Canada with Aunt Clara to visit Uncle."
"I'm not a bad hand at making up things myself," said Marigold. She had an impulse to tell this girl all about Sylvia.
Varvara shrugged her shoulders.
"All right. You needn't believe me if you don't want to. All I want is somebody to play with. You'll do nicely. What is your name?"
"Marigold Lesley."
"How old are you?"
"Ten. How old are YOU?" Marigold was determined that the questions should not be all on one side.
"Oh, I'm just the right age. Come, ask me in. I want to see where you live. Will your mother let us play together?"
"Mother and Grandmother have gone to Aunt Jean's golden wedding," explained Marigold. "And Salome was invited, too, because her mother was a friend of Aunt Jean's. So I'm all alone."
The stranger suddenly threw her arms about Marigold and kissed her rapturously on both cheeks.
"How splendid. Let's have a good time. Let's be as bad as we like. Do you know I love you. You are so pretty. Prettier than I am - and I'm the prettiest princess of my age in Europe."
Marigold was shocked. Little girls shouldn't say things like that. Even if you thought them - sometimes, when you had your blue dress on - you shouldn't say them. But Varvara was talking on.
"That sleek, parted gold hair makes you look like a saint in a stained glass window. But why don't you have it bobbed?"
"Grandmother won't let me."
"Cut it off in spite of her."
"You don't know Grandmother," said Marigold.
She couldn't decide whether she really liked this laughing, tantalising creature or not. But she was int'resting - oh, yes, she was int'resting. Something had happened with a vengeance. Would she tell her about Sylvia? And take her up the hill? No, not yet - somehow, not yet. There was the nice little playhouse in the currant-bushes first.
"What a darling spot," cried Varvara. "But how do you play here all by yourself?"
"I pretend I am the Lady Gloriana Fitzgerald, and sit in the parlour and tell my servant what to do."
"Oh, let me be the servant. I think it must be such fun. Now, you tell me what to do. Shall I sweep the floor?"
Marigold had no trouble telling Varvara what to do. She would show this young Yankee, who thought her soft enough to believe any old yarn, just what it was to be Marigold Lesley of Cloud of Spruce.
3
They had a very good time for a while. When they got tired of it they went to see the pigs - Varvara thought them "very droll animals" - and then they went picking raspberries in the bush behind the pig-house. Varvara kept telling wonderful stories. Certainly, thought Marigold, she was a crackerjack at making up. But they suddenly found all their clothes filled with stick-tights, which was decidedly unpleasant.
"What would you think if I said 'damn'?" demanded Varvara explosively.
Marigold didn't say what she would think, but her face said it for her.
"Well, I won't," said Varvara. "I'll just say 'lamb' in the same tone and that will relieve my feelings just the same. What berries are those? Eat some and if they don't kill you I'll take some, too. You know there is a kind of berry - if you eat them you can see fairies and talk to them. I've been looking for them all my life."
"Well, these aren't fairy-berries. They are poisonous," said Marigold. "I DID eat some once and they made me AWFUL SICK. The minister prayed for me in church," she concluded importantly.
"When I was sick the Archbishop of Canterbury prayed for me," said Varvara.
Marigold wished she had made her minister the moderator of the General Assembly at least.
"Let's go and sit on that seat in the orchard and pick these things out of our clothes," suggested Varvara. "And play 'I see' while we do it. The game is which will see the most wonderful things. I see a china cat with diamond whiskers walking over the lawn."