“Ho!” rejoins William, “you ain’t like a princess! You don’t look like the ones you tell about, anyway! Why”—as she glares at him over the apron, “your hair’s red, red! An’ your eyes are kind o’ green, they are! An’ you’re just jam-packed full o’ freckles! I guess I know well enough how they look, and you ain’t like ’em!”
The tears stand in her eyes, but she will not let them fall.
“I don’t care, William Searles,” she says bravely, “I may look freckled, but I don’t feel so! And it’s better to know how they look than—” But no! She is an honest Child, with all her imaginings. She knows that it is better to look like them than to know about them: better for the maiden and the prince, at least. William waits for the sentence. She begins again.
“William Searles,” she says solemnly, “wouldn’t you rather I could tell you about those princesses than look like them?” William’s eyes sparkle greedily.
“You bet!” he replies with fervor. The Child sighs with relief.
“All right,” she says, “then don’t complain.”
She is alone again, and only William’s faint and fainter invitations to the chickens break the silence. The peas fly into the pan. Suppose she should be kept from Miss Salome’s! But no, that shall not be. She looks ahead to the happy afternoon, singing as she works.
And now, and now the time has come. The dishes are wiped, the cat fed, and the fennel picked for the long sermon to-morrow. She, her very self, in her new dotted lawn walks carefully up the hill to the big house, terraced and gravel-pathed. She knocks timidly at the brass ring and the tall colored butler lets her in. He is the only indoor man-servant she has ever seen, and she reverences him greatly. He smiles condescendingly at her, as he smiles not upon all the country people.
“If Miss will walk up,” he says. She goes up the soft-carpeted stairs into the upstairs drawing-room. She draw’s a long breath of happiness and wonder ever new, and makes her little curtsy to Miss Salome.
Out of the dim delicious dusk of the room come slowly the familiar treasures: the high polished desk, the great piano, the marvelous service of Delft that fills a monstrous sideboard in the distance, the chairs, all silk and satin and shining wood, the great pictures in gilt frames. In the largest chair sits Miss Salome. Will the Child ever tire of looking at her pale lined face, her silver high-dressed hair, her beautiful hands sparkling with rings, her haughty mouth, her tired, troubled eyes? She must have been almost as lovely as the Princess Angelica, once. But she smiles so seldom. She puts out her hand.