By this time Bertie, except for a certain inalienable grace and refinement that were in his little face and figure, had few marks of a young gentleman. His snowy serge was smirched and stained with blackberries; his red stockings, from the sea-water and the field-mud, had none of their original color; his hat had been bent and crumpled by his fall, and his hair was rough. Nobody passing him could have dreamt that this sorry wanderer was a little earl. Nevertheless, when he had been dressed in his little court suit and had been taken to see the queen once at Balmoral, he had never been a quarter so proud nor a tenth part so happy. He longed to meet Cromwell, and Richard the Third, and Gessler, and Nero. He began to feel like all the knights he had ever read of, and those were many.
“LITTLE GIRL, WHY DO YOU CRY?” HE SAID
Presently he saw a little maiden weeping. She was an ugly little maiden, with a shock head of red hair, and a wide mouth, and a brickdust skin; but she was crying. In his present heroic mood, he could not pass her by unconsoled.
“Little girl, why do you cry?” he said, stopping in the narrow green lane.
She looked at him out of a sharp little eye, and her face puckered up afresh.
“I’se going to schule, little master!”
“To school, do you mean? And why does that make you cry? Can you read?”
“Naw,” said the maiden, and sobbed loudly.
“Then why are you not glad to go and learn?” said Bertie, in his superior wisdom.