[Illustration: "SHE WAS NOW ALLOWED TO SIT BESIDE KATHIE AND READ A
LITTLE TO HER."]
At last Kathie was pronounced able to leave her room. The summer had
ripened into autumn, and the leaves, which had turned crisp and brown,
had fallen, making the branches bare. The air was sharp and frosty.
Great logs burned in the fireplaces, delighting Laura with their
cheerful blaze, and keeping her busy in the twilight finding pictures in
the flames. She was now allowed to sit beside Kathie and read a little
to her, a few verses, a hymn, or a Bible story. And to Laura was given
the pleasant task of telling Kathie she was soon to see her father. It
happened this way. Kathie had been carried out for fresh air in
Nannette's arms, and was resting on cushions; it was the middle of the
day, and the sunlight streamed through the broad windows. Laura was
roasting chestnuts, and as she drew them from the ashes she said,
"Kathie, if I were a fairy and you had a wish, what should I turn this
nut into for you?--a pot of gold?"
"No, dear Laura. I do not want a pot of gold."
"But I know what you do want, and what you shall have."
"Ah, Laura, you are too good to me, and I am ashamed to say I want
anything."
"But it is not _anything_, it is _somebody_, you want; and there is
mamma at the window, all wrapped up in a shawl, beckoning me out to see
a soldier who has just gotten down from a horse, and he looks enough
like you, Kathie, to be your father." With which rather sudden
announcement Laura ran out of the room, and soon came back ushering in a
tall man with bronzed cheeks and heavy mustache and a kind eye like
Kathie's; and Kathie was next in his arms, and her face hidden on his
breast.
Not many days after, with grateful words and kindest thanks, the soldier
and his little girl went to their home in the woods. The forester had
received his discharge from the army through Laura's papa.
Laura often went to visit Kathie in her own home, which Lady Idleways
had made bright and sweet; and Kathie could never do enough for Laura to
prove her gratitude. Stockings of softest and whitest wool knit by
Kathie, with delicious cheeses and cakes she had made, were sent to the
castle. The forester carved beautiful toys and footstools and
picture-frames and crosses for the kind friends of his little girl.
As a parting gift Laura had bestowed upon Kathie the young bear she had
befriended in the woods, and which, chained in the stable-yard, had
grown large and fat and tame. Laura had found it a rather awkward pet,
less tractable to her teachings than she had supposed it would be; but
the forester promised that the animal should have the best of care, and
be taught all that a tame bear ought to know.
So many people settled in the villages near, and so many houses and
factories were to be found after a while, that the good fairy and Grim
had to take their departure. The elves, too, disappeared, leaving behind
them only their garden beds of bitter herbs.
Laura, however, lost none of the good lessons the fairy had taught her,
and was never happier than when doing some kind act for those who had
less to make them comfortable and thankful than had the Princess
Idleways.
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Princess Idleways, by Mrs. W. J. Hayes