“Aggie Vander Sijde, parse this sentence: The ground is wet because it has rained.”
Miss Vander Sijde, eleven, arises with a switching of skirts and a tossing of pigtail. “‘Ground’ the subject; ‘is wet’ the predicate; ‘because’. . .”
Selina is listening with school-teacherly expression indicative of encouragement and approval. “Jan Snip, parse this sentence: The flower will wither if it is picked.”
Brown lady’s cloth; ice-wool shawl; chalk in hand. Just a phase; a brief chapter in the adventure. Something to remember and look back on with a mingling of amusement and wonder. Things were going to happen. Such things, with life and life and life stretching ahead of her! In five years—two—even one, perhaps, who knows but that she might be lying on lacy pillows on just such a bleak winter morning, a satin coverlet over her, the morning light shaded by soft rose-coloured hangings. (Early influence of the Fireside Companion.)
“What time is it, Celeste?”
“It is now eleven o'clock, madame.”
“Is that all!”
“Would madame like that I prepare her bath now, or later?”
“Later, Celeste. My chocolate now. My letters.”
“. . . and if is the conjunction modifying. . .”
Early in the winter Selina had had the unfortunate idea of opening the ice-locked windows at intervals and
