But the hopeful voice was talking again:
"Do not put yourself down all the time; there may be no reason why you should not rise, if you will!"
Sally sat down and began thinking in half wonder. "Now what, oh, what, makes me to have thoughts like that?" she asked, in perplexity. "Are there very truly two Sallys inside my skin?"
She was too much in earnest to laugh as she went on: "All is, if there be, we must help each other. Thankful should I be to rise in the world, and great, great joy would it be if some good Fairy could come and live with me, helping me to rise. Listen, listen will I for your voice, good Fairy, and run wherever you send, and do whatever you bid."
Then Sally heard many voices, and the rustle of silken garments, and she knew that a soft swish of fine muslins and delicately shod feet were coming over the lawn.
She dared one peep at the gay company. There was Corniel, in all his glory, viewing the table he had spread so finely, and Sam Spruce, with a high head and knowing air, directing the waiters by signs and nods. The company was a mixed show of splendid coats, gowns, and shimmering laces, but the peep was a short one, and Sally was seated again.
A great chattering, mixed with joyous laughter, floated across the wall, but a "mocker," the lovely mocking-bird of the South, mingled his notes with it all, and Sally could hear nothing distinctly in the pleasant confusion.
Then the charming bird-notes hushed, as some one asked plainly a question of the Fairy Prince.
"To which university do you go, Master Lionel, to Oxford or to Cambridge?"
"I hie me to England in the early fall, to be tutored a year for Oxford. It is to the older university I would go."