"Jeanette," said Molly Brownwell, "your mother and I were girls together. Your father saw more of her at our house than he did at her own home, until they married. Did you know that?" Jeanette nodded assent. "So one day last June she said to me, 'Molly, sometime I wish you would tell Jennie all about you and Bob.'"
Mrs. Brownwell paused, and Jeanette said, "Yes, mother told me to ask you to, Aunt Molly." Tears came into the daughter's eyes, and she added, "I think she knew even then that—"
And then it all came back, and after a while the elder woman was saying, "Well, once upon a time there lived a princess, my dear. All good stories begin so—don't they? She was a fat, pudgy little princess who longed to grow up and have hoop-skirts like a real sure-enough woman princess, and there came along a tall prince—the tallest, handsomest prince in all the wide world, I think. And he and the princess fell in love, as princesses and princes will, you know, my dear,—just as they do now, I am told. And the prince had to go away on business and be gone a long, long time, and while he was gone the father of the princess and the friend of the prince got into trouble—and the princess thought it was serious trouble. She thought the father of the prince would have to go to jail and maybe the prince and his friend fail. My, my, Jeanette, what a big word that word fail seemed to the little fat princess! So she let a man make love to her who could lend them all some money and keep the father out of jail and the prince and his friend from the awful fate of failure. So the man lent the money and made love, and made love. And the little princess had to listen; every one seemed to like to have her listen, so she listened and she listened, and she was a weak little princess. She knew she had wronged the prince by letting the man make love to her, and her soul was smudged and—oh, Jeanette, she was such a foolish, weak, miserable little princess, and they didn't tell her that there is only one prince for every princess, and one princess for every prince—so she took the man, and sent away the prince, and the man made love ever so beautifully—but it was not the real thing, my dear,—not the real thing. And afterwards when she saw the prince—so young and so strong and so handsome, her heart burned for him as with a flame, and she was not ashamed; the wicked, wicked princess, she didn't know. And so they walked together one night right up to the brink of the bad place, dearie—right up to the brink; and the princess shuddered back, and saved the prince. Oh, Jeanette, Jeanette, Jeanette," sobbed the woman, in the girl's arms, "right in this room, in this very room, which was your mother's room in the old house, I came out of the night, as bad a woman as God ever sent away from Him. And your mother and I cried it out, and talked it out, and I fought it out, and won. Oh, I won, Jeanette—I won!"
The two women were silent for a time, and then the elder went on: "That's what your mother wished you to know—that for every princess there is just one real prince, and for every prince there is just one real princess, my dear, and when you have found him, and know he is true, nothing—not money, not friends, not father nor mother—when he is honest, not even pride—should stand between you. That is what your mother sent you, dearie. Do you understand?"
"I think I do, Aunt Molly—I think so," repeated the girl. She looked out of the window for a moment, and then cried, "Oh, Aunt Molly—but I can't, I can't. How could he, Aunt Molly—how could he?" The girl buried her face in the woman's lap, and sobbed.
After a time the elder woman spoke. "You know he loves you, don't you, dear?"
The girl shook her head and cried, "But how could he?" and repeated it again and again.
"And you still love him—I know that, my dear, or you could not—you would not care, either," she added.
And so after a time the tears dried, as tears will, and the two women fell back into the pale world of surfaces, and as Molly Brownwell left she took the girl's hand and said: "You won't forget about the little pudgy princess—the dear, foolish, little weak princess, will you, Jeanette? And, dearie," she added as she stood on the lower steps of the porch, "don't—don't always be so proud—not about that, my dear—about everything else in the world, but not about that." And so she went back into the world, and ceased to be a fairy godmother, and took up her day's work.
John Barclay went to the City that night for the first time in two months, and Jeanette and her Grandmother Barclay kept the big house alone. In ten days he came back; his face was still hard, and the red rims around his eyes were dry, and his voice was sullen, as it had been for many weeks. His soul was still wrestling with a spirit that would not give up the fight. That night his daughter tried to sit with him, as she had tried many nights before. They sat looking at the stars in silence as was their wont. Generally the father had risen and walked away, but that night he turned upon her and said:—