"The children of the poor cannot obtain the learning that comes through books," said Rosamond; "prithee, how much must it be with them?"
Lionel replied, stoutly:
"The lad or the maid who is determined to learn, and have the right place in the world, can find the way! The lad or the maid who pushes through everything that would hinder, and will get learning in spite of difficulties, is the one to succeed and to be admired! We all must push our way. I mean to push mine!"
He spoke fearlessly as there he stood, a fine lad in fine garments that had been brought from across the sea; his fair, clinging hair had been pushed back from his white forehead, for he would have none of the queue worn by many very young men in those days. His waistcoat was daintily ruffled down the front, and a fall of lace was about his hands. A broad ring, with a clear white stone, glittered on one finger. His knee-breeches were of the finest gray linen, with gray satin bows and silver buckles at the knee bands. He wore, also, long gray stockings, "clocked," or with wrought figures up the sides, and pumps of polished leather with silver buckles in the rosettes.
The son of a gentleman, standing in the even-light, the fire of the right kind of ambition, and a set purpose in voice and eye, the sunset glow bringing out form and features like unto those of a young lord; and—down in the hedge, a poor, tangled, ill-kept little maid, gazing upon him even as she would have gazed upon a Prince in a Fairy story.
"Oh, he is a Prince!" gasped Sally. "He is like a Fairy Prince. He is my Fairy Prince!"
Then the poor child flushed and trembled. The idea of having dared to think of young Lionel Grandison, son of Sir Percival and Lady Gabrielle Grandison, as belonging in the leastest degree to her, made her tingle with a kind of awe.
"Nobody knows it but just me," thought Sally, "and I will have him for my Fairy Prince. I can, way down in my heart-place; oh, I must, and I will."
She was very quiet for a few moments after that.
Then, all at once, something woke up in Sally. Something that had never awakened before. It was a sudden thought and knowledge of what she was herself.