“Why, of course I know you!” cried Arthur, holding out his hand, “and I am very glad to see you. How do you do, Kid?”
Then the Kid said his name was Billy Grimes, and that ever since he heard Arthur read that story he had been trying to be something better than an ugly duck. He had run away from his father in Pittsburgh, soon after meeting Arthur, because the big tramp wanted to make him steal for a living, and had gradually worked his way to Harrisburg, where he was trying to be an honest newsboy.
The result of this fortunate second meeting with Arthur was that, in less than a month from that time, Master William Grimes was entered as a pupil in one of the best military schools of the country. There he is working so hard and doing so well that, before long nobody will remember that he ever was an “ugly duckling.”
In Washington Colonel Dale went to call on an old friend, and took Arthur with him. To the boy’s surprise and delight, this friend proved to be the very gentleman to whom he had sold his dog Rusty. The dog was still there, and manifested such extravagant joy at again seeing his former master that the gentleman laughingly said it would be cruel to part such loving friends any longer. So the dear dog, now more handsome and knowing than ever, was again presented to the boy who had once fought to save him from a beating, and Arthur said this was the happiest thing of the whole journey.
The next day they were once more at Dalecourt, and the very first person Arthur saw, standing in the doorway as he and Rusty sprang from the carriage, was Cynthia. Colonel Dale had invited her to come to Dalecourt to be educated and to live as his daughter, and her father had consented that she should.
Miss Hatty had been engaged all summer in restoring Dalecourt to even more than its former glory, so that now it was one of the most beautiful places in Virginia.
Here we must leave the boy whose wanderings and fortunes we have followed for a year. Although he is no longer poor, he studies and works just as hard as though he were, and is all the happier for so doing. He is still determined to be a railroad man when he grows up, and he still finds his chief pleasure in turning other people’s sorrow into happiness.
On that first evening at Dalecourt Miss Hatty went up to his room to take away the light after he had gone to bed. He was just dropping to sleep as she bent over him, and kissing his forehead said softly: “Good-night and pleasant dreams to you, my dear little Prince Dusty!”
THE END.