HER FAIRY PRINCE.
"Any letters, Mr. Grey?"
The voice was low and eager. The girl to whom the voice belonged paused before the dingy counter of the country store and post-office combined, and stood patiently waiting. The postmaster, a rosy-faced old gentleman, with a superabundance of bald head, glanced over the meager assortment of epistolary communications in the little lettered boxes before him, and shook his head slowly.
"No! Oh—yes, to be sure! Wait a moment, if you please, Miss Beatrix," he corrected himself, pouncing upon a large white envelope, which he placed upon the counter before her with an air of satisfaction. "Here you are! I nigh overlooked it. It's for your pa—see—'Doctor Frederick Lynne, Chester, Mass.,' and postmarked New Orleans. Now, who kin it be from? Your pa got any relative down South? No,"—(as the girl shook her head decidedly)—"I thought not. I've knowed Doctor Lynne these one-and-twenty years, and I never heerd him talk o' no relatives down South. How's your ma, Miss Beatrix?"
The girl's dark eyes flashed.
"My mother?" she repeated, with a little tinge of contempt in her sweet voice. "You mean Mrs. Lynne? You will please remember, Mr. Grey, that although I call Doctor Lynne father, his wife is not my mother."
"Eh? What? Waal, I declar'! But still, arter all, you're right. You're putty nigh always right, Miss Trix. Nothin' more today?" he added, anxiously, as having slipped the letter into her pocket, the girl was about to move away.
"No. Yes, there is. You may cut me off fifteen yards of that garnet merino, if you please, Mr. Grey. Papa said that I might, and—"
"Yes, yes, Miss Beatrix; it's all right. And mercy knows you need a new dress! Think you'll be able to carry such a big bundle all the way home? Yes? Waal, young folks orter be strong, and you always was able to take keer o' yourself. So, Miss Beatrix"—measuring off the soft folds of merino with deft fingers—"you don't 'pear to like Mrs. Lynne? Waal, 'tain't in natur' for a gal to keer as much for a 'dopted mother as she would for her own. Your mother—no one here knows who she was, Miss Trix; but when I looked upon her dead face, I declar' I thought I was a-lookin' at the face o' an angel."
The girl's dark eyes filled with tears, but she choked them bravely back.