Una mused for a minute in silence; then she looked up and said:
“I ought to do what Mr. Stephen wishes. Do you know what he wants me to do?”
“You are to be companion to me, my dear.”
“I am very fond of fairy tales,” she said; “but I have never read one more strange and beautiful than this.”
“Let me show you how to put on your gloves, dear,” she said. “Yes, you have got a small hand, and a beautifully-shaped one, too. Strange, small hands are a sure sign of high birth.”
“Perhaps I am a princess in disguise. No! I am a woodman’s daughter in the disguise of a princess, that is it.”
Mrs. Davenant looked at her curiously.
“You are not ashamed of being a woodman’s daughter, Una,” she said; “but yet—perhaps the time will come when you will——”
Una’s opened-eyed surprise stopped her.
“Ashamed?” she echoed, with mild astonishment. “Why?”