Sandpipers went scudding along down by the water, and the mountain holly began putting on a new dress. The pink azalea, or swamp pink, violets, buttercups, and all kinds of meadow beauties began peeping up all around.
So smart a scholar had Sally shown herself, that Mistress Kent would gladly have taken her into her classes, but the proud Virginia matrons who sent their richly clothed children to the dame school would still have thought Sally too poorly dressed a little maid to sit beside their dainty little darlings.
Sally was beginning to add, subtract, divide, and multiply. And when the school closed for the summer and Mistress Kent lent her a simple history to read, she was wild with delight that she would still have a book near by.
And much as Sally hated to give up her lessons for a few months, there was a bird singing in her heart, singing a song of which poor Sally was half ashamed and yet which made her very, very glad. For in June, rich, flowery, song-bird June, he was coming home, her Fairy Prince!
"And now I can far better understand all he reads," she said to her Fairy. Then her glad voice fell. "But I can never, never come up to him," she sighed; "there is yet a mountain of difference between us."
"You have begun to climb," said her Fairy.
"Ah, but there is proud Lady Rosamond Earlscourt, and Lady Irene Westwood, and so many other high-born damsels of his own kind, all so proud, so well-born."
"What know you of your own birth?" asked her Fairy, sharply. "How often must I ask thee?"
"I only remember the Flats and Slipside Row," said Sally's forlorn voice.
"Keep climbing," said her Fairy. "Does not something within you still urge you to climb and climb?"