“Any one who wishes to send the queen a personal poem or a communication of any kind (except a personal letter, which the poor lady isn’t allowed to have at all) must have it printed in gold letters on one side of these silk sheets with a gold fringe, just so many inches wide and no wider, all about it. These gold trimmings will be returned to him in time, as they are expensive, and the queen is kindly and thrifty; but for the queen’s presents they are imperative. The deprivations of the queen’s life are pathetically illustrated by an incident which occurred not long ago. An American lad sent her majesty an immense collection of the flowers of this country, pressed and mounted. The queen was delighted with the collection and kept it for three months, turning over the leaves frequently with great delight. At the end of that time, which was as long as she was allowed by the court etiquette to keep it, she had it sent back with a letter saying that, being queen of England, she was not allowed to have any gifts, and that she parted from them with deep regret.”
“Well,” exclaimed Jean, with an energy that brought a laugh from her small audience, “I would rather be the Bensalem blacksmith’s wife.”
“I wish I could take this to Nettie,” said Judith; “she thinks sometimes she would like to be a queen.”
“She is, in her small province,” replied Mrs. Lane. “I have something for her; I think I can help her step out into as wide a world as she cares to live in. No; don’t ask me; it is to be her secret and my own. Now, Judith, tell me, what is the secret of the happy and useful lives you know?”
“I don’t know,” replied Judith, truthfully. “But they are all married. I am thinking of girls—like me. Their work came to them.”
“As mine did,” said Jean, contentedly, with a glance from her work out the window where the blacksmith was shoeing a horse.
“Your Aunt Affy was not married—”
“No, she was not. She had her work. It was in her home. She was born among her work. But I have not a home like that,” Judith answered in short, sharp sentences.
“Why, Judith,” reproached Jean, “what would Aunt Affy say to that?”
“It would hurt her. She would look sorry. I do not know what gets into me, sometimes. She would adopt me and be like my own mother.”