“Nathalie Page,” interposed the girl quickly, who, reassured by the laughing tone of the young girl on the couch, had begun to recover from the awkwardness of her plight. Somehow the situation appealed to the girl’s imagination and she began to enjoy it. “Oh, I ought to be the one in the tower,” she merrily asserted, “for I feel as if I were a prisoner with this funny thing over my eyes.”
“It is too bad,” cried her companion sympathetically, “but you know it is a whim of Mamma’s. You see,” she explained, “I had an accident when I was a child, and it has made me deformed—” there was a pathetic note in her voice. “Mamma is so sensitive, she is afraid that if people see me they will make unkind remarks.”
“Oh, how could any one be unkind?” exclaimed horrified Nathalie.
“Well, they are sometimes. I used to be sensitive myself, too, but I’m getting used to it. I tell Mamma if I don’t mind she ought not to. Yes,” she ended sadly, “I am indeed a prisoner shut up in these big gray walls.”
“How hard it must be!” answered Nathalie. “But do you never go out?”
“Sometimes I go in the garden. I used to drive, but the people in this town are so curious; they stare so. I believe they are worse than in the city, where I suppose people are used to all kinds of strange sights. But there, I’m doing all the talking, please tell me about yourself! I’m so glad to know some one who comes from New York. The doctor told me you were a New Yorker; he told me, too, that you were very clever, and that you told stories beautifully.”
“Nonsense,” exclaimed Nathalie. “The doctor is a dear, but he natters me; I am not clever, I wish I were. I studied hard at school and am ready to enter college this fall, and as I am only sixteen people think it very clever for a girl to accomplish, but I don’t see why a girl can’t do it as well as a boy. But now I’m not going to have a chance to show people whether I am really clever or not,” and then she briefly told about her disappointment in having to give up college.
“But what are you going to do if you do not go to college? Please tell me!” said the princess, as Nathalie hesitated. “I just love the sound of your voice!” burst from the girl impulsively.
Nathalie laughed at this extravagant praise, wondering for a moment if the young girl were not making fun of her. Loath to believe that she could be so rude, however, she went on and told of her city life, her schoolmates, about Dick’s accident, and how they came to settle in Westport, and then she stopped. She had been on the verge of telling about the Pioneers when she recollected that the doctor had said she was to tell the child stories. “Oh, I must stop talking—I was to tell you stories—what will your mother think of me?”
“That is all right,” promptly returned the girl, “you are here to entertain me; that’s what she told the doctor, and if I would rather have you talk than tell stories, it will be as I say.”