But not bitterly. Thanksgivingly.
Love's offspring was Marcia. Sixteen and the color and odor of an ivory
fan that has lain in frangipani. And Hattie could sometimes poke her
tongue into her cheek over this bit of whimsy:
It was her well-paid effort in the burnt cork that made possible, for
instance, the frill of real lace that lay to the low little neck of
Marcia's first party dress, as if blown there in sea spume.
Out of the profits of Hattie's justly famous Brown Cold
Cream--Guaranteed Color-fast--Mulatto, Medium, Chocolate, had come
Marcia's ermine muff and tippet; the enamel toilet set; the Steinway
grand piano; the yearly and by no means light tuition toll at Miss
Harperly's Select Day School for Girls.
You get the whimsy of it? For everything fair that was Marcia, Hattie
had brownly paid for. Liltingly, and with the rill of the song of
thanksgiving in her heart.
That was how Hattie moved through her time. Hugging this melody of
Marcia. Through the knife-edged nervous evenings in the theater.
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