“These are the pearls.”
“These—these are pearls!” she says. “I am stringing them for my girdle! Does your Highness desire that I should wear this—this carbuncle?”
His Highness laughs loud and long.
“It’s a sweet-bough,” he chuckles, “and I guess you better eat it right up, now.” One moment of wavering: shall awful wrath come upon this desecrator of the soul’s best rites, or good fellowship and feasting be given him? She scowls, she shrugs her aproned shoulders, she glances from beneath her lashes, she smiles.
“I’ll give you half,” she announces. After all, it is hardly probable that the prince would have helped her shell the peas. And William Searles will, if he is only the chore-boy. Vain hope!
“I got to drive the chickens ’round back,” he demurs. “I can’t spend my time shellin’ peas. Your gran’ma says if you don’t get ’em done pretty soon you can’t go over to Miss Salome’s this afternoon. She says you’re a dreadful slow child!”
This is the last straw. The Child rises with what would indeed be a freezing dignity were it not that with her rises the birthday-chair. “William,” she begins. But more suddenly than is consistent with her tone she sinks back. William sits upon the grass shaking with laughter.
“You looked so awful funny, so awful funny!” he gasps. The Child hangs for a moment between tears and laughter. Then she accepts the situation and laughs as merrily as the chore-boy
“I was pretending I was a princess,” she explains. “I——”