The girl in the brown woolen gown was clasping her hands painfully together, and her heart was beating with hope; but Gabriel shook his head at her, and she remained quiet. He had already seen that the dog was not Topaz, although astonishingly like him in size and shape.
Pedro, across the street, kept drawing nearer, as he played and smiled and beckoned with his head. There trotted after him an unpromising little brown dog with limp tail and ears. The man, in his good-nature and success, looked very different from the organ-grinder of yesterday; and as he laughed aloud, the master of the yellow dog frowned and shouted something in Italian back at him, before shouldering his organ and tramping away, his dog very glad to go on all fours again.
Pedro pulled off his hat, smiling at the lingering girl and boy. "He says you have given him all your coppers," he said. "I don't believe it; but in any case I will give you a tune."
"You are letting him go," murmured the princess breathlessly, starting to run after the yellow dog.
"Saw you not 'twas not Topaz?" asked Gabriel, under cover of the lively tune, and again seizing a fold of the woolen gown, he held the girl in her place. "Wait," he said aloud, with a show of interest, "I wish to hear the music."
"Let me go, my heart is sick," returned the princess, turning her head away.
Gabriel pretended to frown at her and pulled some pence from his pocket, at sight of which the organ-grinder's eyes brightened and he played harder than ever.
"Can you be strong, princess?" asked the boy distinctly. "Don't look now, but Topaz has come to us."
The princess started, and instead of obeying, looked closely first at the dejected little brown dog and then up and down the street and behind her, but in vain.
"If those pence are for me, my boy," said the organ-grinder, stopping his music, "you and your sister shall see my dog dance. He is the wonder of the world, although he is not much to look at. We cannot all be royal and own golden dogs."