"Didn't—wave!" she stammered. "What do you—mean?"
"Nothing," laughed the boy, turning away from the window. "I forgot that you didn't know the story."
"But maybe I do—that is—what was the story?" asked Miss Holbrook, wetting her lips as if they had grown suddenly very dry.
"Oh, do you? I wonder now! It wasn't 'The PRINCE and the Pauper,' but the PRINCESS and the Pauper," cited David; "and they used to wave signals, and answer with flags. Do you know the story?"
There was no answer. Miss Holbrook was putting away her work, hurriedly, and with hands that shook. David noticed that she even pricked herself in her anxiety to get the needle tucked away. Then she drew him to a low stool at her side.
"David, I want you to tell me that story, please," she said, "just as Mr. Jack told it to you. Now, be careful and put it all in, because I—I want to hear it," she finished, with an odd little laugh that seemed to bring two bright red spots to her cheeks.
"Oh, do you want to hear it? Then I will tell it," cried David joyfully. To David, almost as delightful as to hear a story was to tell one himself. "You see, first—" And he plunged headlong into the introduction.
David knew it well—that story: and there was, perhaps, little that he forgot. It might not have been always told in Mr. Jack's language; but his meaning was there, and very intently Miss Holbrook listened while David told of the boy and the girl, the wavings, and the flags that were blue, black, and red. She laughed once,—that was at the little joke with the bells that the girl played,—but she did not speak until sometime later when David was telling of the first home-coming of the Princess, and of the time when the boy on his tiny piazza watched and watched in vain for a waving white signal from the tower.
"Do you mean to say," interposed Miss Holbrook then, almost starting to her feet, "that that boy expected—" She stopped suddenly, and fell back in her chair. The two red spots on her cheeks had become a rosy glow now, all over her face.
"Expected what?" asked David.