Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
Author of "Eve's Other Children"
With A Frontispiece In Color By MABEL HATT
1919
The older I get the more convinced I become that the most fascinatingpersons in this world are those elusive souls whom we know perfectlywell but whom we never, as children say, "get to meet." They slip outof countries, or towns—or rooms even,—just before we arrive,leaving us with an inexplicable feeling of having been cheated ofsomething that was rightfully and divinely ours. That's the way Istill feel about little Miss By-the-Day. Perhaps you, too, have beenbaffled by the will-o'-the-wispishness of that whimsical young person.Perhaps you, too, tried to find her but never did.
She sounded so casual and commonplace when I first began hearing abouther that I let her slip through my fingers. She was just a littleseamstress who had a "vairee" odd way of speaking; it was quite a longtime before I realized that everybody who spoke about her wasunconsciously trying to imitate her drawling voice. And then I noticedthat everybody who mentioned her smiled dreamily and wondered where onearth she'd come from. I kept hearing, just as you probably did, oddscraps of things she had said, droll adventures in which she hadfigured, extraordinary and fantastic tales about the house in whichshe lived. And presently, when it was too late, I found myselflistening to regretful murmurings of scores of baffled persons whocouldn't find out what had become of her. She suddenly vanished,leaving nothing behind her save her delectable house.
If you'll lend me your pencil a minute I'll show you on the back ofthis envelope just how that house was situated. You can understand thewhole amazing story better if you keep in mind how the church on thecorner and the rectory were tucked in beside that great house. For itis a big house, so huge that the six prim brownstones across thestreet from it look like toy houses. But I've been told that inBrooklyn's early days there was no street, just a long terraced gardenthat sloped down to the river.
For all that the streets have crowded so disrespectfully about it thewhole place still has a sort of "world-with-out-end-amen" air—perhapsbecause of the impressive squareness of its structure, great blocks ofbrownstone joined solidly; perhaps because of the enormous gnarledwistaria vines that stretch above its massive cornices—but one doesfeel as Felicia Day herself did when some one asked her how long shethought it had been there. She said she thought it must have beenthere "Much, much more than Always—it must have been jamais au grand—forevaire and more than evaire!"
Maybe, like me, you've passed that house a dozen times and shudderedat the filth of the little street.
[Illustration: Town map.]
I used to hold my breath as I hurried by that dismal old rookery. Ithought it the most hideous purgatory that ever sheltered a horde ofmiserable humans. But you needn't be afraid to pass it now! Theimmaculate sweet