{Drawing of the dear old lady.}THAT'S the dear old lady,In a green tabby gownAnd a great lace cap,With long lace ruffles hanging down.There she sitsIn a cushioned high-backed seat,Covered over with crimson damask,With a footstool at her feet.You see what a handsome room it is,Full of old carving and gilding;The house is, one may be sure,Of the Elizabethan style of building.—Mary Howitt.
{Drawing of the dear old lady.}THAT'S the dear old lady,In a green tabby gownAnd a great lace cap,With long lace ruffles hanging down.There she sitsIn a cushioned high-backed seat,Covered over with crimson damask,With a footstool at her feet.You see what a handsome room it is,Full of old carving and gilding;The house is, one may be sure,Of the Elizabethan style of building.—Mary Howitt.
{Drawing of the dear old lady.}THAT'S the dear old lady,In a green tabby gownAnd a great lace cap,With long lace ruffles hanging down.
There she sitsIn a cushioned high-backed seat,Covered over with crimson damask,With a footstool at her feet.
You see what a handsome room it is,Full of old carving and gilding;The house is, one may be sure,Of the Elizabethan style of building.
—Mary Howitt.
—Mary Howitt.
Our interest in Mrs. Halsey and her son slumbered for a time; not that we forgother, or gave up our determination to do something for Jim whenever the opportunity offered. It was soon to come, but our time and interest were filled with other things. Just now it was a mystery—and what so dear to a girl's imagination?
It was brought up for discussion afresh, because Miss Prillwitz had said to Emma Jane Anton that the diadem which I wore as Guinevere was not a suitable one for a queen, but a rather nondescript arrangement half-way between that of a marquis and an earl.
This assumption of authoritative knowledge in regard to coronets revived an old rumor as to the noble birth of Miss Prillwitz.
No one could tell who first circulated the report that Miss Prillwitz was a princess. It developed little by little, I fancy, but when it began to be whispered we received it without a shadow of doubt. Miss Prillwitz was a prim little woman, who always came to Madame's receptions dressed in the same brocade dress, once gaudy with a great bouquet pattern, but now faded into faint pink and primrose on a background of silvery-green, with the same carefully cleaned gloves and fine old fan of the period of Marie Antoinette. She wore her perfectly whitehair à la Pompadour, and further increased her diminutive height by French heels, but in spite of these artificial contrivances she was a tiny woman, though she had dignity enough for a very tall one. Adelaide said she had "the unmistakable air of agrande dame," and that she would have suspected her in any disguise. Milly had once spied, half tucked in her belt and dependent from a slender chain, a miniature, set in brilliants, of a handsome young man in uniform, a row of decorations on his breast, crosses and stars hanging from strips of bright ribbon. This was a great discovery, and Milly was sure that the original was no less a personage than Peter the Great. She had thought out a thrilling romance of true love crossed by jealousy and heartbreak, which the rest of the girls accepted as more than probable, until Emma Jane Anton suggested that as Peter the Great died in 1725, it would really make the princess much older than she appeared, to fancy that he was the hero of her girlhood. Emma Jane Anton always had a disagreeable faculty of remembering dates. The other girls were unanimous in the opinion that she knew entirely too much, and each one looked and longed for anopportunity of publicly detecting her in a mistake and correcting her—an opportunity which never came. Milly never made herself offensive by being certain of anything, and was loved and petted accordingly. The myth of a royal lover was a congenial one, and gained credence, though none of us dared to give him a name or date, at least not in the presence of Emma Jane Anton. No one had the temerity to question Adelaide's infallibility in detecting a great lady at first sight. It did not ever occur to Emma Jane Anton to ask how many princesses she had met, and what was the "unmistakable air" of distinction and nobility which announced them like a herald's proclamation. Perhaps this was because Adelaide herself possessed this grand air by nature, and was far more regal in appearance and feeling than many a Guelph or Stuart. Witch Winnie, perhaps because she was the mad-cap of the boarding-school, and was always getting into scrapes herself, snuffed a political plot, and suggested that the princess had been exiled on account of deep-laid machinations against one of the reigning families, a supposition which would account for her living in exile and disguise, and even in comparativepoverty. This explanation, as being the most ingenious, and affording fascinating scope for the imagination, was the most popular one, and was more or less elaborated according to the individual fancy of the young lady. Emma Jane Anton was obliged to admit that she might be a princess, and that there was no harm in calling her so amongst ourselves. Madame had let fall some very singular expressions when she announced the fact that we were to have her for our teacher in Botany. Emma Jane had heard her, and it was she who had reported the news to the others.
"Girls," she said, "did you ever hear anything so absurd! We are going to recite our Botany to the princess."
"You don't mean it!"
"Honest! She lives in that funny old house across the square, that Winnie always pretends to think is haunted. We are to parade over there three days in the week. Madame says it's a great opportunity, for she is really quite eminent; writes for scientific journals, has traveled in all sorts of foreign countries, andhas moved in court circles."
"I told you so!" exclaimed Adelaide,triumphantly. "I always said she was a true-blue princess."
"I don't know that you have quite proved it yet," replied Emma Jane Anton, coolly, "but Madame did say that we would have an opportunity of learning much more from her than mere botany—etiquette, I presume—for she went on to hint that she had been brought up in a different school of manners from that of our own day and country, that we would find her peculiar in some ways, and that she trusted to our native courtesy to humor her little foibles, and a hundred more things of the same sort, winding up with that stock expression which she always uses when she has talked a subject to shreds and tatters—'A word to the wise is sufficient.'"
"I wish I had heard her," said Witch Winnie; "I don't consider this subject talked to tatters, by any means. I propose that this Botany class constitute itself a committee of investigation to clear up the mystery in regard to the history of the princess. We are supposed to be devoted to the study of nature, but I considerhumannature a deal the more interesting. It will almost pay for having to mind one'sp's andq's. I wonderwhat she would say if she caught me sliding down her palace balusters! We'll all have to practice curtseying—one step to the side, then two back. Oh! I'm ever so sorry I knocked over that stand. Was the vase a keepsake or anything? I'll buy you another. No, I can't, for I've spent all my allowance for this month. Well, you may have thatbonbonnièreof mine you liked so much." The vase was a treasure, but no one could be vexed with Witch Winnie, and I forgave her, of course, and would none of thebonbonnière.
Our first glimpse at the house in which the princess lived was as appetizing to our imaginations as the little lady herself. It had been built as a church-school, and straggled around the church, shaping itself to the exterior angles of that edifice, and in so doing gained a number of queerly shaped rooms, some long and narrow, and others with irregular corners, but all bright with southern sunshine. The princess rented only the upper floor and the front room in the basement. The rest of the house had been let to other parties, but was now vacant. How strange and lonely it must seem, we thought, to go up and down thoselong staircases, and peep into the uninhabited rooms! Rather eerie at night. "I wouldn't live that way for the world," shivered Milly. "I should be afraid of robbers."
"Burglars don't usually choose an unoccupied house for their operations," Emma Jane remarked, sententiously.
Later, when we were better acquainted with the princess, Milly asked her if she was never timid. She acknowledged that she was, but assured us that ratswere one great comfort.
"What do you mean?" Milly asked.
"Whenevaire," said the princess (in the quaint broken English which we always found so fascinating, English which had only the foreignness of pronunciation and idiom, and which Adelaide insisted was rarely so maltreated as to be reallybroken, but was only a little dislocated)—"whenevaire I hear one cautious sawing noise which shall be as if ze burglaire to file ze lock, I say to myself, 'Ah, ha! Monsieur Rat have invited to himself some companie in ze pantry of ze butler.' When zere come onetappageon zeescalier, as zo some one make haste to depart ze house, I turn myself upon my bed and make to myself explanation—Rats!When ze footsteps mysterious steal so softly down ze hall, and make pause justly at my door, then I reach for ze great cane of my fazzer, which I keep at all times by ze canopy of my bed, and I pound on ze floor—boom, boom, Monsieur Ratscélérat, and it is thus I make my reassurance."
The princess received us in what had been the basement dining-room, which she called her laboratory. The entire south side was one broad window of small diamond-shaped panes. Forming a sill to this window was a row of low, wide cases for the reception of herbaria, and the room had a peculiar herby smell, a mixture of sweet-fern and faint aromatic herbs.
The cushions which converted the tops of these cases into seats were stuffed with dried beech-leaves.
The princess quoted Latin to us for her preference for the fine springy upholstery which beech-leaves give.Silva domus, cubilia frondes.("The wood a house, the foliage a couch.")
The other furniture in the room was a long table placed in front of the book-case divan, a table covered with piles of MS. books, a press for specimens, two microscopes, and a great blue china bowl containing pussy-willows in water—our specimens for the day's study. High book-cases, whose contents could only be guessed at, for the glass doors were lined with curiously shirred green silk, were ranged against the wall opposite, and at one end of the room stood a monumental German stove in white porcelain; at the other was Miss Prillwitz's chair, a high-backed Gothic affair, which had once served as an episcopalsedilium, but had been removed on the occasion of a new furnishing of the church.
It formed a stately background for the little figure. I often found myself making sketches of her on the sheets of soft paper between which we pressed our flowers, instead of listening to the lecture. I liked to imagine how she would look in a great ruff, not of Cynthia Vaughn's mosquito net, but of realpoint de Venise.
And yet her talks were very interesting; she was a true lover of nature, and made us love her. She regretted that she could not take us into the deep woods, but she opened our eyes to the wealth of country suggestiveness which we could find in the city. She introduced us personally to the scanty twodozen or so of trees in the little park, and from the intimate acquaintance formed with each of these, our appetites were whetted for vast wildernesses of forest primeval.
She opened to us the beauty which there lies in the simple branching of the trees in their winter nudity, the tracery of the limbs and twigs cut clearly against a yellow sunset, or picked out with snow; how the elms gave graceful wine-glass and Greek-vase outlines; the snakily mottled sycamore undulated its great arms like a boa-constrictor reaching out for prey; the birch, "the lady of the woods," displayed her white satin dress; the gnarled hemlocks wrestled upward, each sharp angle a defiance to the winter storms with which they had striven in heroic combat, the bent knees clutching the rocks, while the aged arms writhed and tossed in the grasp of the fiends of the air. She showed us the beautiful parabolic curve of the willows, a bouquet of rockets; the military bearing of a row of Lombardy poplars standing, in their perfect alignment, like tall grenadiers drawn up in a hollow square. Before the first tender blurring of the leaf-buds we knew our trees, and loved them for their almost human qualities.
Miss Sartoris had taught me, the preceding summer, to look for the decorative beauty to be found in common roadside weeds, and we had made sketches together of dock, elecampane, tansy, thistles, and milkweed. I had one rich, rare day with her in a swamp, when I ruined a pair of stockings, and made the discovery that a skunk-cabbage was as beautiful in its curves as a calla. I brought these sketches to the princess, and she congratulated me on the possession of my country home with its gold-mines of beauty all around.
"You are one heiress, my dear," she said, "to ze vast wealths which you have only to learn how you s'all enjoy. Only t'ink of ze sousands of poor city people who haf never had ze felicity to see a swamp!"
I grew to appreciate the country, and to feel that I was richer than I had thought.
Milly found a branch of study which was not above the measure of her intellect. She soon mastered the long names, and learned to think, and teachers in other departments noted an improvement. There was need for this, for the Hornets long kept up a tradition that at one of the history examinations Milly had been asked, "What is the SalicLaw?" and had replied, confidently—"That no woman ordescendant of a woman, can ever reign in France."
{Drawing of Mrs. Grogan.} MRS. GROGAN, the baby-farmer of Rickett's Court, could hardly have been described as a court lady, and yet she was a very typical specimen of the women of this locality. But before introducing the reader to the society of Rickett's Court, I must first explain how it was that we came to make its acquaintance.
As the time approached for the concert of which I have spoken, Adelaide was reminded of her determination to have a "violin dress" made by Madame Céleste. Adelaide playedthe violin, as we thought, divinely; she was at least the best performer at Madame's. "The violin is the violet," I said, quoting from "Charles Auchester." "You must have a violet-colored gown."
"A very delicate shade of china crêpe will do," Adelaide replied, "made up with a darker tint, and the sleeves must be puffed like that dress the princess wore to the tableaux."
"Adelaide, dear," murmured Milly, "you ought to wear angel sleeves to show your lovely arms."
"And have them flop about like a ship's pennant in a lively breeze, during that bit of rapid bowing? That would be too grotesque."
"Puff them to the elbow," I suggested, "and then have a fall of soft lace that will float back and give the turn of your wrist as you whip the strings."
"See here, Adelaide," remarked Witch Winnie, "if you want something really fine, get that Mrs. Halsey to design it for you."
"You don't suppose that I would hire a dress for the concert at a costumer's?"
"I didn't say that; you could have it made wherever you pleased, but get Mrs. Halsey'sideas on the subject; they are really remarkable."
Adelaide considered the subject and acted upon it, but, greatly to my relief, she refused to do so without explaining the entire affair to Madame.
"I'll not stand in the way of your having a nice gown," said Witch Winnie. "Come, Tib, let's confess."
I was overjoyed, and Madame, though duly shocked, was not severe. She even allowed Witch Winnie to take Adelaide to see Mrs. Halsey, stipulating only that she should be chaperoned by one of the teachers. Adelaide chose Miss Sartoris, at my suggestion, both because we liked her, and from my feeling that her artistic instinct might be of service.
The girls were disappointed to find that Mrs. Halsey was no longer at the costumer's. He had "pounced" her, he said, because she was "too much of a lady for de peesness." Fortunately he could give the girls her address—No. 1, sixth floor, Rickett's Court.
It was a very disagreeable part of town. Miss Sartoris looked doubtful as they approached it, and was on the point of getting into the carriage again as they alighted,but Witch Winnie had already darted through a long dark hall which led to the court in the centre of the block, and there was nothing for it but to follow.
Evil smells nearly choked them as they ran the gauntlet of that hall, and they were no better off on emerging upon the sloppy court. The space overhead, between the buildings, was laced with an intricate network of clothes-lines filled with garments. Adelaide said she realized now where all upper New York had its laundry work done, for this was evidently not the wash of the court people. From their appearance it was only fair to conjecture that they were so busy doing other people's washing that they never had time for their own. The dirty water seemed to be thrown from the windows into the court, where it stood in puddles or feebly trickled into the sewer, from which emanated nauseous and deadly gases. Sickly children were dabbling in these puddles.
"It makes me think of Hood's 'Lost Heir,'" said Miss Sartoris—
"The court,Where he was better off than all the other young boys,With two bricks, an old shoe, nine oyster shells, and a dead kitten by way of toys."
"The court,Where he was better off than all the other young boys,With two bricks, an old shoe, nine oyster shells, and a dead kitten by way of toys."
They mounted a ricketty staircase grimed with dirt. Smells of new degrees and varieties of loathsomeness assaulted them at every landing. The Italian rag-pickers in the basement were sorting their filthy wares, while a little girl was concocting for them the garlic stew over a charcoal brazier. The mingled fumes came thick from the open door. Mrs. Grogan on the first floor had paused in her washing to take a pull at a villainous pipe. She came to the door still smoking, and carrying in her arms an almost skeleton baby, who sucked at a dirty rag containing a crust dipped in gin. Winnie obtained one glimpse of the interior of Mrs. Grogan's domicile, and drew back quite pale. "Adelaide," she said, "the room literallyswarmedwith babies; that woman cannot have so many all of the same age." Inquiry of Mrs. Halsey enlightened them. Mrs. Grogan was a "baby-farmer," and boarded these children, making a good income thereby, as their mothers were servants in good families. On the next floor a family of eight were working in a hall-bedroom, at rolling cigars. The large rooms were occupied by some Chinese. Mrs. Halsey thought that they used them asan opium den. Past more doors, up three more pairs of stairs, and they paused at No. 1. They knocked several times, but they could not make themselves heard above the buzz and whirr of a sewing-machine. Finally Winnie opened the door, and there sat Mrs. Halsey bent over the machine, while the floor was piled with dainty underclothing neatly tucked.
She sprang up, evidently pleased to see Winnie again, and motioned her callers to the only seats which the room afforded—a chair, a trunk, and a stool.
Winnie apologized for the interruption, and explained her errand. "But perhaps you are too busy to design this dress," Adelaide said; "I see you have plenty of work."
"It will not take long to make a little sketch," Mrs. Halsey replied, "and it will be a real pleasure for me to do it." As her fingers moved rapidly over the paper the girls took an inventory of the room. A cracked cooking-stove, and a cupboard behind it formed of a dry-goods box, but all the utensils were scrupulously clean. A closet, another dry-goods case on end, with a chintz curtain in front, concealed, as Winnie's prying eyes ascertained, a roll of bedding, which was evidently spread on the floor at night. Mrs. Halsey knelt before a worn table, and this, with the sewing-machine, completed the furnishing of the apartment. No, in the window there was a row of fruit-cans containing some geraniums. Miss Sartoris discovered them, and Mrs. Halsey apologized for their condition. "They were just in bud," she said, "but we were without coal for several days, and they were nipped by frost."
Poor woman! she looked as ifshehad been nipped by the frost too during that bitter experience. She coughed, and Adelaide remarked, "You ought to drink cream, Mrs. Halsey; they say it is better for a cough than cod-liver oil."
"I have plenty of milk," the little woman replied. "The milkman for whom my Jim works lets him have the milk that he finds left over in the cans when he washes them out after his rounds. Sometimes there's as much as a pint, and almost always enough for our oatmeal."
Mrs. Halsey spoke cheerily and proudly—as of a luxury which she owed her boy. The design was completed, and Adelaide was delighted.
"Would you like to have me make the costume in tissue-paper?" Mrs. Halsey asked; "the sleeve, at least, and this drapery; then any seamstress can make it."
"How much will it be?" Adelaide asked, doubtfully—wondering if her five-dollar bill would cover the charge.
"Do you think seventy-five cents too much? It would take me an afternoon."
"But you could certainly earn more than that by your sewing."
Mrs. Halsey smiled rather bitterly. "Would you really like to know the rates at which I work?" she asked.
Adelaide expressed her interest. "These pretty Mother Hubbard night-gowns sell well, I am sure, but I know you can't get very much for making them, for I bought a pair at a bargain counter for a dollar."
"It is the bargain counter which makes the low pay. I get a dollar and thirty centsa dozenfor making them," said Mrs. Halsey, calmly.
"A dozen!" cried Winnie; "and how many can you make in a day?"
"Eight."
"Then you make—"
"Eighty-five cents a day; but I cannot average that."
"Can't you do better with something else?"
"I have made flannel skirts—tucked—at a dollar a dozen, but I can only make eight of those in a day, so that is less. I have received a dollar and twenty cents a dozen for making chemises, which sell at seven dollars a dozen; and seventy-five cents a dozen for babies' slips, three tucks and a hem; forty cents a dozen for corset covers. I have a friend who works a machine in a ruffling factory; she makes a hundred and fifty yards of hemmed and tucked ruffling a day, for which she receives twenty-five cents. So, you see, I am better off than some."[A]
[A]See "Campbell's Prisoners of Poverty" for still more harrowing statistics.
[A]See "Campbell's Prisoners of Poverty" for still more harrowing statistics.
"And can you live on five dollars a week?"
"Six dollars, Madame; Jim earns one dollar and the milk."
"You pay for rent—"
"Six dollars a month; yes, itishard to earn that."
"You must be thankful that you have only Jim to provide for."
"The Sandys, on the floor below, have six children; five of them earn wages. I think they earn more than their cost."
"But," said Miss Sartoris, "I thought child labor was prohibited by law."
"Not out of school hours, or at home. Then the parents often swear a child is over fourteen, but small of its age, and get it into a factory. You wouldn't blame them, Madame, if you knew all the circumstances I do. I keep Jim at his books, but the study, with the night work, I'm afraid is killing him. They tempt him at the saloon, too, to take what they call a 'bracer' as he goes out to drive the milk cart at 3 in the morning, but I get up and have tea ready for him, so that he does not yield."
"We must go now," said Miss Sartoris, kindly. "You will send Jim with the paper pattern to-night?" Adelaide slipped a dollar into Mrs. Halsey's hand, and would take no change. And the three went down the stairs thoughtful and sad.
"What can we do for her?" Winnie asked.
"I am sure I don't know," replied Miss Sartoris; "she certainly seems capable of securing better wages."
"I will speak to Madame Céleste about her," said Adelaide; and she was as good as her word. Winnie accompanied Adelaide when she took the pattern to the fashionable dress-maker. The modiste listened in rapt attention to Adelaide's explanation of the gown wanted. She examined the design with interest. "It is perfectly made," she said. "Who constructed this for you? It is the work of an expert. Ah, Miss, if I only had now in my establishment a designer who was with me last year! She had such a mind forcostumes de fantaisie! For Greek costumes to be worn at the harp, and for Directoire dresses, I miss her cruelly, but Mademoiselle's design is so explicit that we will have no trouble."
"Was your designer a Mrs. Halsey?" Winnie asked.
"The same, Miss. Do you know her? Can you give me her address? I must try to get her back."
"I think you may be able to obtain her. She made this pattern for me; but you will have to bid high, for she has her boy with her now."
"Ah yes! the boy; that was the trouble between us. Seamstresses have no businessto be mothers. Mrs. Halsey ought to give up the child entirely to some asylum for adoption; he will always be a handicap to her; but she does not see this, and clings to him as though she thought him her only chance for fortune. There is a mystery in Mrs. Halsey's life. Her husband has deserted her, and she lives in the vain hope that he will come back some day and explain everything. She patronized me once, long ago, when she was in better circumstances. She will not talk about her husband, and I fancy that he is one of those defaulting cashiers who have run away to Canada. I am willing to take her back on the old terms, but she must give up her boy. I have an order for a set of costumes for one of our queens of the opera. Mrs. Halsey is just the one to take it in hand. Where did you say she could be found?"
"I think you had better communicate with her through me," Adelaide replied; "I am not at liberty to give her address."
"And it is very possible," Winnie spoke up, eagerly, for she had seen a gleam in Madame Céleste's eyes, "that her friends will provide for the boy. In that case she will be more independent, and perhaps will notbe willing to return at the old salary. What shall we say is the most that you will offer."
"Five dollars a week and her board; that is very good pay, Miss; fifty cents more than I paid her when she was with me."
The girls could hardly wait to reach the Amen Corner to talk the matter over. Milly was all sympathy. "I will write to papa," she said, "and get him to send Jim to a boarding-school. I'll send for several circulars, and find out how much it costs."
As an answer from Mr. Roseveldt might be expected the next day, we decided to wait for it. Adelaide regretted that her father was in Omaha, as she was sure that he would have aided in the scheme.
Mr. Roseveldt's answer was most discouraging. He regarded Milly's plan as mere sentimental nonsense, and would take no interest in it.
"You might save something out of your allowance, Milly," suggested the audacious Winnie.
"I give away three-fourths of it now," Milly replied, in an injured tone. "What with the flowers I have on the organ every day for Miss Hope, and the favors for the german, which I always furnish, and thebonbons I give you girls, and all my other extras—"
"But, Milly dear," I exclaimed, "we would all ever so much rather you spent the candy money for Jim than on us."
"But I wantsomecandy for myself, and I am not going to be so mean as to munch it, and not pass any to the other girls."
It would have been a real deprivation to Milly to do without her beloved candy. She gloated over luscious pasty "lumps of delight" in the way of marshmallows and chocolate creams, candied fruits and marrons glacées, and her silver bonbonnière was always filled with the most expensive candied violets and rose-leaves. Worse than this, there were certain little cordial drops, which were a peculiar weakness of Milly's; none of us knew with what an awful danger she was playing, or that Milly inherited a taste for alcoholic beverages through several generations. But Milly was not selfish.
"Very well, girls," she said, with a sigh, "if you will go without, I will, and we will form a total abstinence candy society. I know just how much that means for Jim, for I paid Maillard eight dollars last month."
"You are a good girl," spoke up Emma Jane, "and if you hold to that resolution, Milly Roseveldt, I will deal you out a cake of maple sugar every day, from a box I've just received from some Vermont cousins. I was wondering what I should do with it, for I don't care for sweets."
Milly's face brightened; all unconsciously she was doing as great a kindness to herself as to Jim, and the pure maple sugar was a good substitute for the unwholesome concoctions of the confectioner; it satisfied her craving for sweets, and did not poison her appetite.
The rest of us added our small contributions, but the aggregate only amounted to three dollars a week, and we were unable to learn of any boarding-school to which Jim could be sent at those rates.
Winnie had communicated Madame Céleste's offer to Mrs. Halsey. "It would be just the thing if I were alone," she replied, "but what would Jim do without me?"
"Perhaps you can board him somewhere," Winnie suggested; and she told of the sum which we girls had promised.
"If I knew of any respectable place where he would have good influences, I wouldaccept your kindness, as a loan, for a little while," Mrs. Halsey replied, "for my first earnings must go for clothes. I have friends in Connecticut; perhaps they will take Jim."
But Mrs. Halsey found that her friends had moved West. She thanked us for our interest, but said that there seemed nothing better to do than to continue as they were.
"I can't bear to tell Madame Céleste that she declines her offer," said Adelaide. "Wemust find a place for that boy."
"I don't see how," replied Winnie; but she saw, that afternoon; it came to her all by a sudden inspiration during our botany lesson.
{Drawing of the little Prince del Paradiso.} THAT day the botany class found their teacher in a flutter of excitement. There was a fresh, pink glow in the faded cheeks, and an unusual sparkle in the kindly eyes. She seated herself in the episcopal chair, lifted her lorgnette, and began to arrange the specimens for the day's lesson, but her hand trembled so that she could scarcely adjust the microscope, and the papers on which her notes were written sifted through her fingers and were strewn in confusion on the floor.
"Are you ill, Miss Prillwitz?" Adelaide asked, in alarm.
"No, Miss Armstrong," replied the princess,"it is not a painful in my system, and it is not a sorry; it is a pleasant. I shall expect to myself a company, and this is to me so seldom that I find myselfégaré—what you call it?—scatter? sprinkled?—as to my understanding."
We all looked our interest, and Winnie ventured to ask—"One of your relations, Miss Prillwitz?"
"Yes," replied the little lady; "he is of my own family, though to see him I have never ze pleasure. It ees ze little Prince del Paradiso."
We girls pinched each other under the table, while Milly murmured, "A prince! How perfectly lovely!"
"Yes," replied Miss Prillwitz; "ze birthright to ziss little poy is one great, high, nobilitie,la plus haute noblesse, but he know nossing of it, nossing whateffer. He haf ze misfortune to be exported from his home when one leetle child; he haf been elevated by poor peoples to think himself also a poor. He know nossing of ze estates what belong his family, and better he not know until he make surely his title, and he make to himself some education which shall make him suit to his position."
"How did you know about this little stolen prince?" Emma Jane asked.
"I receive message from his older bruzzer to take him to my houseprovisionellement, till his rights and his—his—what you call—his sameness?"
"You mean his identity?"
"Yes, yes, his die entity can be justly prove."
"It seems to me," said Witch Winnie, impulsively, "that he can't be a very kind elder brother to be so indifferent."
"My dear child, you make my admiration with what celeritude you do arrive always at exactly ze wrong conclusion. Ze prince haf made great effort to recover his little bruzzer, but he must guard himself from ze false claimants, ze impostors."
"Then the little boy who is coming to you," said Emma Jane, "may not be the real prince, after all?"
"That is a possible," Miss Prillwitz admitted, "but it is not a probable. Somesing assure me zat he s'all prove his nobility."
"How very interesting," said Milly. "Was he stolen away from home by gypsies?"
"No, my child, he was not steal. He wandered himself away from his fazzer's house and was lost."
"How old is he now?"
"Twelve year."
Witch Winnie started; that was just Jim Halsey's age, and what a difference in the destiny awaiting the two boys! One the son of a king, the other of a criminal.
"Will you to see ze little chamber of ze petit prince?" asked Miss Prillwitz.
We were all overjoyed by the suggestion, and the eager little woman led us to a room just under the roof, with a dormer-window looking out upon the roof of the church.
Milly ran directly to this window, and drawing aside the curtains looked out, but started back again half frightened, for a carved gargoyle under the eaves was very near and leered at her with a malicious, demoniacal expression. He was a grotesque creature with bat wings, lolling tongue, and long claws, but harmless enough, for the doves perched on his head and preened their iridescent plumage in the sunshine. The church roof just here was a wilderness of flying buttresses and pinnacles; the chimes were still far overhead, and rang out, as we entered the chambers, my favorite hymn—"Sun of my soul, thou Saviour dear."
I have not yet described the room itself. We all exclaimed at its quaint beauty as we entered.
It was papered with an old-fashioned vine pattern, the green foliage twined about a slender trellis, and this gave the room, which was really quite small, the effect of an arbor with space beyond. There was a patch of dark green carpet with a mossy pattern before the bed, which was very simple and dressed in white. In the window recess was a dry-goods box, upholstered in a fern-patterned chintz of a restful green tint, and serving, with its cushions, both as a divan and as a chest for clothing. There was a little corner wash-stand with a toilet set decorated with water-lilies and green lily-pads, and there was a little sliding curtain of green China silk with a shadow-pattern at the window, while through the uncurtained upper space one saw, beyond the church roof, the trees of the park.
"O Miss Prillwitz!" I exclaimed, "it is just Aurora Leigh's room over again. You modeled it on Mrs. Browning's description, did you not?—
"'I had a little chamber in the house,As green as any privet-hedge a birdMight choose to build in ...... the wallsWere green, the carpet was pure green;the straightSmall bed was curtained greenly,and the foldsHung green about the window,which let inA dash of dawn dew from its greenery,the honeysuckle.'"
"'I had a little chamber in the house,As green as any privet-hedge a birdMight choose to build in ...... the wallsWere green, the carpet was pure green;the straightSmall bed was curtained greenly,and the foldsHung green about the window,which let inA dash of dawn dew from its greenery,the honeysuckle.'"
"I haf nefer ze pleasure to know zat room," said Miss Prillwitz, her eyes kindling.
"How perfectly sweet!" exclaimed Adelaide. "It is like 'a lodge in some vast wilderness.' I didn't know that there was a place in New York so like the country."
"Will the prince study botany with us?" Milly asked, as we descended the stairs.
"I fear he is not ready for ze botany. His education haf been neglect. But you s'all see him oftenly. I must beg you not to tell him zat he is a prince; zis must not divulge to him until ze proper time."
"And then," added Emma Jane, "it would be cruel to excite hopes which may be doomed to disappointment."
The princess smiled. "I do not fear zat,"she said. "And now, young ladies, I must make you my excuse, and beg Miss Armstrong she s'all hear ze class ze remains of ze hour; I must go to ze market for prepare ze young prince his supper."
She hurried away, and we attempted to turn our minds to our lesson. Adelaide had just exclaimed that in botany the termhopsignified small, anddoglarge, but she broke off the statement with the exclamation, "And do you see, girls, what this proves?"
"That dog-roses are large roses," replied Emma Jane.
"That the Chinese laundry man around the corner, Hop Sin, is a little sinner," said Winnie.
"No, no, I don't mean that, but she said that the Prince del Paradiso was related to her; then, of course, she must belong to the Paradiso family as well, and what we have so long suspected is really true. She is a genuine princess, and probably the daughter of a king."
"I am not so sure of that," replied Emma Jane.
"Do you suspect Miss Prillwitz of being an impostor?" Adelaide asked, coldly.
"Certainly not," replied Emma Jane; "but in many European countries every son of a prince is called a prince, instead of the eldest son only, as in England, and all the sons of all the younger sons are princes, and so on to the last descendant; and I presume it is so with the daughters as well; so that the title must often exist where there are no estates."
"But Miss Prillwitz said that the Prince del Paradiso was heir to immense estates," Milly insisted.
"But that proves nothing in her own case," Adelaide admitted. "Some day, perhaps she will tell us more about herself, since she has begun to open her heart to us."
At that moment the door-bell rang, and as the princess kept no servant, Winnie went to the door. She was gone a long time, and came back looking grave and distraught—giving an evasive answer when we asked her who had called. I wondered at this because, as I sat nearest the door, I had overheard a part of the conversation, and knew that it referred to the little boy who was expected. "He cannot come," a voice had said; "he has a situation where he can learn a trade." This was of so much interest tous all that I wondered why Winnie did not immediately report it.
As soon as we returned to the school she obtained an interview with Madame, and permission to see Mrs. Halsey in reference to the Céleste situation; Madame stipulating that she must not ask this favor for a long time, as she did not like to have her pupils frequent the tenement district. I offered to go with Winnie, and was surprised that she declined my company. She returned glowing with suppressed excitement.
"Mrs. Halsey has accepted Madame Céleste's offer," she exclaimed; "she leaves the court to-morrow, let us hope for good and all. O girls, it is a horrible place! I saw worse sights than when I was there before."
"And Jim?" we asked.
"Jim is provided for. We are to pay three dollars a week for him for the present, until Mrs. Halsey gets on her feet."
"Did she find a good place for him?"
"An excellent place; but you must not ask me another question, and if any mysterious circumstances should come to your observation within a few days, you arenot to say a thing, or even look surprised. Promise, every one of you."
"A mystery! how delightful!" exclaimed Milly. "It's almost as good as the little prince. You can rely on us; we will help you, Winnie, whatever it is, for we know it's all right if it's your doing."
Emma Jane was not present, and I remarked that, while the rest of us would believe in Winnie without understanding her, and even in spite of the most suspicious circumstances, I was not sure that we could trust Emma Jane so far.
"Emma Jane will see nothing to suspect, and Milly, I know, will stand by me. It's only you two that I am afraid of—Adelaide, because she has seen Jim; and Tib, from her natural smartness in smelling out a secret."
"Whatever it is, Winnie, we believe you could never do anything very bad," said Adelaide.
"But I have," Winnie replied; "something just reckless. I'm in for the worst scrape of my life, and just as I was trying so hard to be good. I shall never be anything but a malefactor, and maybe get expelled, and throw the dear Amen Cornerinto disgrace. I'd better have staid queen of the Hornets, for I shall be nothing but Witch Winnie to the end of the chapter."
{Drawing of Mrs. Hetterman.} TRS. HETTERMAN came into our life in consequence of a train of troubles which arose in the boarding-school from the frequent change of the cook. Madame had been served for several years by a faithful colored man, who had suddenly taken it into his head to go off as steward on a gentleman's yacht. She had supplied his place by a Biddy, who was found intoxicated on the kitchen floor.A woman followed who turned out to be a thief, and we were now enduring an incompetent creature who made sour bread and spoiled nearly every dish which passed through her hands. Half of the girls were suffering with dyspepsia, and all were grumbling. The Amen Corner was especially out of sorts. Milly, who was always fastidious, had eaten nothing but maple-sugar for breakfast, and had a sick headache; Emma Jane was snappish; Witch Winnie had stolen a box of crackers from the pantry, which she had passed around. Adelaide and I had regaled ourselves upon them, but Emma Jane had declined on high moral grounds, and was virtuously miserable. It was in this unchristian frame of mind, or rather of stomach, that we took our next botany lesson. We found the princess beaming with pleasure. "My tear young ladies," she exclaimed, "you must felicitate me. It is all so much better as I had hoped. Ze leetle prince has not been so badly elevated after all. He haf been taught to be kind and unselfish; zat is already ze foundation of a gentleman."
Miss Prillwitz had occasion to leave the room a few minutes later. Adelaide sniffedthe air, and remarked, "Girls, don't you smell something very nice?"
"It's here on the stand in the corner," said Witch Winnie, lifting a napkin which covered a tray, and exclaiming, "Fish balls! Only see! the most beautiful brown fish balls!"
"It's the remnants of their breakfast; she has forgotten to take it away," said Adelaide. "They make me feel positively faint with longing; I don't believe she would mind if we took just one."
We ate of the dainties, even Emma Jane yielding to temptation; they were delicious, and, having begun, we could not stop until they were all devoured. Then we looked at one another in shame and dismay. "Who will confess?" asked Adelaide.
"You ought to; you put us up to it," said Emma Jane Anton.
"Let's write a round-robin," I suggested, "and all sign it."
"I'll stand it," said Winnie. "I led you into temptation."
A step was heard in the hall. Winnie stepped forward and began to speak rapidly; the rest of us looked down shamefacedly.
"Miss Prillwitz, please forgive us; we were so hungry we could not stand it. If you knew what a dreadful breakfast we had this morning, I'm sure you would not blame us—"
But she was interrupted by a cry of dismay—"Oh! have you eaten them all? I bought them for Aunty."
Looking up, we saw a manly little boy with an expression of distress on his frank features.
Adelaide uttered a sharp exclamation. I thought she said, "It's him!" and yet Adelaide seldom forgot her grammar. Winnie drew a deep breath, and caught Adelaide by the arm. The boy looked up from the empty platter to the girls' faces, and his expression changed. "Oh! it's you," he said. "Well, no matter, only I meant 'em for a present forher—Miss Prillwitz, you know. She's no end good to me. Mrs. Hetterman, down at Rickett's Court, makes 'em for regular customers every Friday morning. They are prime, and mother gave me a quarter for pocket-money this month, so I got ten cents' worth for Aunty; she lets me call her so. I thought she'd like 'em, and it would patronize Mrs. Hetterman, and show her I hadn'tforgotten old friends, if I had moved up in the world."
"Here's ten cents to get some more from Mrs. Hetterman," said Adelaide, "and maybe we can get her a wholesale order to furnish our boarding-school. I'll speak to Madame about it this very day."
"And if Madame doesn't order them, we girls will club together and have a spread of our own," said Winnie.
Miss Prillwitz came in at this juncture, and explanations followed.
"If Madame is in such trouble in regards of a cook," said Miss Prillwitz, "I vill write her of Mrs. Hetterman, and perhaps it will be to them both a providence. Can she make ozzer sings as ze croquettes of codfish?"
"Oh yes, indeed," the little prince spoke up, eagerly; "soup, and turnovers, andsuchbread! She gave me a little loaf every baking while mother had the pneumonia. Mr. Dooley, the butcher, gave me a marrow bone every Monday, and I always took it to Mrs. Hetterman to make into soup. It made mother sick to boil it in our little room, and Mrs. Hetterman would make a kettle of stock, and showed me how to keep it in acrock outside the window, so mother could have some every day; it was what kept mother's strength up through it all. We had such good neighbors at the court! but Mrs. Hetterman was best of all. She has five children of her own, too. Bill is a messenger boy, and Jennie works in a feather factory. Mary is a cripple, but she is just lovely, and tidies the house, and takes care of the two little ones. Mr. Hetterman was a plasterer and got good wages, but he fell from a scaffolding and broke his leg, and he's at the hospital."
"And does Mrs. Hetterman support the family on ze croquettes of codfish?" asked Miss Prillwitz.
"She scrubs offices, but she could get a place as cook in a family if it wasn't for the children." He looked longingly at Miss Prillwitz as he spoke, but she did not seem to notice the glance.
"Here, mon garçon, run down to ze court, and tell Mrs. Hetterman to take a basket of her cookery to ze boarding-school. I t'ink she will engage to herself some beesness."
The lesson proceeded, but Adelaide and Winnie both blundered; they were evidently thinking of something else.
A change came over Witch Winnie; she lost her old reckless gayety and became subdued and thoughtful. The Hornets said she was studying for honors, but I knew this was not the case, for her lessons were not as well prepared as formerly. She would sit for long periods lost in reverie. Winnie had charge of the money collected for Jim's board. She reported, after one week, that his mother did not need as much; two dollars would supply the margin between what was required and the sum she was able to pay. None of us, with the exception of Adelaide, knew where Winnie had domiciled Jim, but we were content to leave the matter in her hands. A week later Mrs. Halsey only needed one dollar. Mrs. Hetterman was engaged as cook for the boarding-school, and we all rejoiced in the change. I went down to the kitchen to see her, one afternoon, and found her a buxom Englishwoman who dropped herh's, but was always neat and civil. She was delighted when she found that I knew the names of her children. "It was a little boy who used to live in your court who told me about them," I said, "and who introduced us to your good fish balls."
"Oh yes, Miss, I mind; it was little Jim 'Alsey; 'e's the prince of fine fellers, 'e is."
Jim Halsey the prince! My head fairly reeled, and yet this explained many things which had seemed mysterious. Winnie's agency in the matter was still not entirely clear to me. I did not connect her remorseful remarks about another scrape, with Jim, and I believed that by some remarkable coincidence he was really Miss Prillwitz's little prince incognito. I wondered whether Mrs. Hetterman knew anything of his real history, but she preferred to talk at present about her own family. She was very happy in the prospect of introducing her oldest daughter, Jennie, into the house as a waitress. "It will be so much better for Jennie," she said, "than the feather factory. The hair there is not good for 'er lungs."
I did not understand, at first, what Mrs. Hetterman meant by thehair, but when she explained that it was "the hatmosphere," her meaning dawned upon me.
"It will make it a bit lonelier for Mary and the little ones," she admitted, "but I go down every night, after the work's over, to tidy them up and to see that hall's right. The court is not a fit place for the children.If I could find decent lodgings for them, such as Mrs. 'Alsey 'as got for her Jim! I think I could pay as much, if the place was only found; I'm 'oping something will turn hup, Miss."
"I hope so," I replied; and I asked Winnie that afternoon if she thought the person who was boarding Jim Halsey would take the Hettermans, but she utterly discouraged the idea.
We saw a good deal of the little prince. Miss Prillwitz called him Giacomo, and was deeply attached to him. He did her credit too, for he was docile and bright. His mother was right in saying that he inherited his father's facility for mathematics, but with this faculty he possessed also a love for mechanics and for machinery of every sort.
"He will make one good engineer some day," said Miss Prillwitz, in speaking of him to us.
"That is a strange career for a prince," said Adelaide.
"My tear, it may be many year before he ees call to his princedom, and in ze meanstime he muss make his way. Zen, too, ze sons of ze royal houses make such study, and itis one good thing for ze country whose prince interest himself in ze science."
"I wonder how he would like to study surveying by and by," Adelaide said. "I know that father could employ him in the West."
"Zat is one excellent idea," said Miss Prillwitz. "We will see, when ze time s'all arrive."
We were all fond of the little prince. After all, Miss Prillwitz had decided to let him attend the botany lessons on Saturdays. "If he s'all be one surveyor in ze West," she said, "he s'all have opportunity to discover ze new species of flower; he must learn all ze natural science."
The prince attended the public school during the week, and held his place at the head of his class with ease. It was not hard to do so, now that he could sleep all night. Emma Jane, who had had her spasms of doubt in regard to him, and had even gone so far at first as to say that Miss Prillwitz was a crank, and she had no faith in the boy's nobility, had been won over by the boy himself, and remarked one afternoon that the internal evidence was convincing; Giacomo was not like common children; he was evidently cast in a finer mold; he would do honor to anyposition; birth would tell, after all. It was all that dear Milly could do not to betray the secret to the little prince. He was very fond of Milly, but deferential and unpresuming, as became his apparent position. "Some day our places may be reversed. You may live in a beautiful home and have hosts of friends," Milly said to him. "Will you remember me then, Giacomo?"
"How can that ever be?" the boy asked. "You will grow up and be a fine rich lady; I will be a poor young man whom you will have quite forgotten."
"Not necessarily poor," Milly hastened to reply. "If you go West you may, by working hard, become rich and famous. Will you forget your old friends then?"
And Jim promised that he would never, never forget. Then a shade came across his face. "Maybe I will, after all," he said, "for I have forgotten Mary Hetterman for more than a week. I did not think I could be so mean."
Adelaide and I had a conference in regard to the prince. It seemed that she had recognized him as Jim Halsey from the first. "I have been wondering," she said, "whether it was not a case like that of Little Lord Fauntleroy, and whether Mrs. Halsey could not beproved to be the wife of a prince, but I see that cannot be the explanation of the matter; and I have concluded that Jim is her adopted child. She must have taken him, when she was in better circumstances, from the people who brought him to this country when he was a very little fellow, and so he has no recollection of any other home."
"She always spoke of him as her very own," I said, "and seemed fonder of him than a foster-mother could be. It will be very hard for her to part with him, if his real relatives claim him."
"Not if he goes to high rank and great estates," said Adelaide. "She probably had no idea of his noble birth when she adopted him; and it just proves that bread cast upon the waters returns, for he will probably care for her right royally, when he comes into his own, and she will find that adopting that boy was the best investment she ever made in her life."
Winnie came in while we were talking.
"Why didn't you tell us, Winnie," I asked, "that Jim Halsey was the little prince?"
"It did not seem necessary," Winnie replied, looking unnecessarily alarmed, as it seemed to me.
"You pay his board directly to Miss Prillwitz, I suppose?" Adelaide said.
"No, I give it to his mother, and she sends it by mail."
"Well, I don't see any harm in letting Miss Prillwitz know that we know his mother, and are helping in his support."
"I do, and I wish you would not tell her this," Winnie entreated.
"Just as you please," Adelaide replied, "but I hate mysteries."
"So do I," said Winnie, with a deep sigh.
"What is the matter with you, any way, Winnie?" Adelaide asked.
"That is my business," Winnie replied, shortly, and left the room, banging the door behind her.
"Winnie isn't half as jolly as she used to be," said Milly, in an injured tone. "I always depend on her to save me when I'm not prepared for recitation. When Professor Todd was coming down the line in the Virgil class and was only two girls away from me, I made the most beseeching faces at Winnie, who sits opposite, and usually she is so quick to take the hint, and come to the rescue by asking Professor Todd a lot of questions about the sites of the ancientcities, and where he thinks the Hesperides were situated. She gets him to talking on his pet hobbies, and he proses on like an old dear, until the bell rings for change of class. But this time she just stared at me in the most wall-eyed manner, while I signaled her in a perfect agony as he got nearer and nearer. I tried to think of some question of my own to ask him, and suddenly one popped into my head which I thought was very bright. He had just been talking about Æneas' shipwreck, and he referred to St. Paul's, with a description of the ancient vessels, and how he met the same Mediterranean storms, and I plucked up courage and said, 'Professor Todd, why is it that we hear so much about Virginia, and in all the pictures of the shipwreck we see her standing on the deck of the ship, and Paul rushing out into the surf to rescue her? Now I have read the chapter in Acts which describes St. Paul's shipwreck, very carefully, and in that, and in all the history of Paul, there is not one word about Virginia.'
"You should have heard the girls shout; I think they were just as mean as they could be. That odious Cynthia Vaughn nearly fell off the bench, and Professor Todd lookedat me in such a despairing way, as though he gave me up from that time forth. I just burst into tears, and Winnie came over and took me out of the room. She acknowledged that it was all her fault, and that she ought to have come to my rescue sooner."
Poor Milly! we could only comfort her with our assurances that we loved her all the more for her troubles.
Summer was approaching, and we were making our plans for vacation. Milly's mother had invited Adelaide to spend the season with them at their cottage at Narragansett Pier; and Winnie's father had consented to her spending June and July with me on our Long Island farm. Winnie cheered up somewhat at the prospect. "It's the warm weather which makes me feel muggy," she said; "I shall feel better when we get out of the city too. The noise and racket distract me, and seeing so many miserable people makes me miserable and sick at heart."
"I don't feel so at all," I replied. "It makes me happy to see how much good even we can do. Mrs. Halsey would not have obtained her situation with MadameCéleste but for us, or have been able to place Jim with Miss Prillwitz."
Winnie winced. "Don't talk about them; I am sick and tired of hearing about the little prince. Do you know, I don't believe he is a prince at all!"
"What! Do you imagine that this story of Miss Prillwitz's is only a fabrication?"
"Perhaps so, or at least a hallucination on her part; and even if it is all true Jim may not be the boy. I wonder what proof she has of his identity, or whether she has written yet to his relatives. I mean to ask her—this very day."
But Winnie did nothing of the kind, for we were surprised on arriving at Miss Prillwitz's to find three new children sitting in the broad window-seats. One was a thin girl with crutches, whom I at once guessed must be Mary Hetterman; two chubby, freckle-faced little ones sat in the sunshine looking over a picture-book together, while Miss Prillwitz beamed upon them.
"My tears," she said, "you see I haf some more companie. Giacomo haf brought these small people to spend ze day."
Jim came in a little later, and introduced his friends. He was flushed and excited, and it presently appeared that the visit was a part of a deep-laid scheme of his own.
"I wanted you to know the Hettermans," he said, "because they are such nice children, and Rickett's Court is no place for them, for the family next door have the fever, and Mr. Grogan has the tremens, and scares them most to death. Mrs. Hetterman gets twenty dollars a month as cook now, and she says she can pay a dollar a week apiece for each of the children if she can board them where it is healthful and decent; and you young ladies were so kind as to help my mother at first, and now, as she don't need it any longer, maybe you would help the Hettermans, and then maybe Aunty would take them in. Mary is very handy, for all she's a cripple, and the babies' noise is just nothing but a pleasure, and—" here the tears stood in his eyes, and he looked at Miss Prillwitz, who was frozen stiff with astonishment, with piteous appealing—"and I would eat just as little as I could."
The good woman's voice trembled, "Take ze children to play in ze park," she said; "ze young ladies and I, we talk it some over."
Mary Hetterman tied the children's hoods on with cheerful alacrity. She evidentlyhad high hopes, while Jim threw his arms around Miss Prillwitz—"Aunty," he said, "they deserve that you should be kind to them more than I do."
"What reason is zere that I should take them in more as all ze uzzer children in ze court?"
"Just as much reason as for you to take me," replied the boy, running away.
"Bless his heart!" said Miss Prillwitz, as he closed the door; "he knows not ze reason zat draw me to him, ze cherubim. But I did not know you to help his muzzer until now."
Adelaide explained matters, and the case of the Hettermans was discussed, Miss Prillwitz agreeing to take them in if we would assist in their support. "I shall leaf zem in my apartement for ze summer," she said, "for it is necessaire to me zat I go ze shore of ze sea, and I s'all take Giacomo with me, for I cannot bear to separate myself of him. Zis is so near to your school zat Mrs. Hetterman can sleep her nights here. But I have not decided to myself where I shall repose myself for ze summer."
I spoke up quickly, referring her to Miss Sartoris for the beauties of our part of Long Island and for mother's low price for board.Miss Prillwitz was evidently pleasantly impressed. She thought she would like to study the seaweed of that part of the coast, and when she heard of the lighthouse, against which the birds of passage dashed themselves, and how the keeper had kept their skins, waiting for some one to come that way and teach him to stuff them, she was quite decided in our favor.
I noticed that Winnie grew suddenly silent. As we left the house she pinched me softly. "You didn't mean any harm, Tib," she said, "but if they go, it will take every bit of pleasure out of my summer."