"No; please tell me, Mr. Prince. Oh, I am sure this is going to be a real true fairy tale—how delicious!" and Daisy leaned back on her sofa with a sigh of content.
"The rooms were beautiful, Daisy," continued Arthur "because the walls were papered with Goodness and the chairs, and the tables, and the carpets, and the sofas, and the thousand-and-one little knick-knacks, were placed in the rooms by Self-Denial, and the windows were polished very brightly by Love herself, and she kept the key which opened the chamber doors."
"How sweet!" said Daisy.
"Yes; there were two rooms, and they were very sweet. To live there meant to get into an abode of peace. As to ogres, they would fall down dead on the threshold of such rooms. There were only two, and they were up high in a small house, and without the gilding and the glory which I spoke of they would have seemed humble enough, but to those who knew their secret, and what their owner had done for her expected guests, they appeared a very Palace Beautiful. Now, Daisy, I must tell you something so sad. The rooms were ready, but the guests did not arrive. Three guests were expected, but the kind lady who had prepared the rooms, who had papered them with Goodness, and furnished them with Self-Denial, and brightened them with Love, waited and longed for her visitors in vain.
"Two of the visitors were most anxious to come, but one—a little one—although she looked very gentle and had a sweet expression and blue eyes, and seemed quite the sort of little girl who would not willingly hurt a fly, held back. It never entered into her head that she was selfish, and was making two or three people who loved her both anxious and unhappy. She preferred to live in rooms which, by comparison, were like dungeons; for the owners had never put Love into them, and had never thought of Self-Denial in connection with them. There, Daisy-flower, I have done. It seems a pity that the little girl should have been so selfish, does it not?"
"But how does the story end, Mr. Arthur? You have really only just begun."
"I only know the beginning, Daisy," said Noel, as he rose to leave. "I have not an idea whether that Palace Beautiful will ever receive its visitors, whether that kind lady will ever be made happy, or whether that little girl will ever cease to be selfish."
A few moments afterwards Noel went away, and poor Daisy turned her face to the wall and wept.
Of course, the very obvious moral had hit her hard, poor little maid! Oh! if she could really only confide in Arthur—he was so nice and strong, and he looked so contemptuously at Mr. Dove that day when he was carrying Daisy across the road to Miss Egerton's.
"I don't believe he would be afraid of Mr. Dove," she whispered softly, under her breath. "Oh dear! why am I so terribly frightened? Why does he make my heart beat? and why do I shake so when I see him? Well, I'll never tell about his bringing me up the sticky sweetmeats—of course I'll not tell. I promised I wouldn't; it would be dreadful to break one's promise. Of course I know where people go who break their promises. No, I promised Mr. Dove, and I must always, and always, and always keep my word; but I did not promise him that I'd stay here. He wanted me to, and I just had it on the tip of my tongue, for I was dreadfully frightened, but he heard a noise, and he went away. I'm so glad I didn't promise, because the Prince says I should go and live in the Palace Beautiful. He thinks I'm a selfish little girl. Oh dear! how terrified I shall be, but I won't be a selfish little girl, and keep Primrose and Jasmine away from the Palace, and break the kind lady's heart. I must try and write a very private little note to Mr. Dove, and tell him that though I am going away I'll always and always keep my word about the sweeties, and I'll always be his truest of friends, although I do fear him more than anything in the world."