VOICE OF THE PRINCE.
Daisy felt quite certain that the Prince had come. Jasmine greeted her
old friend of St. Paul's Cathedral with sparkling eyes and effusive
words of welcome. Primrose, too, was very pleased to see any one who
brought such a contented look into Daisy's little face, for the child
asked herself to sit in his arms, and laying her head on his shoulder,
she listened with pleasure to some wonderful fairy stories which he
related. While Noel was by, Daisy seemed quite to forget her nervous
fancies--she even spoke confidentially of ogres who tried to make
themselves friendly, and she asked Arthur, with a very puzzled,
anxious face, if a little girl, who was so unfortunate as to have an
ogre for a friend, could ever get rid of him.
"Oh, yes; he might turn into an enemy," answered Arthur.
But here poor Daisy shuddered violently, and turned very white.
"No, no," she said; "not into an enemy, never into an enemy, dear Mr.
Arthur."
"What matter is it to you, little maid?" answered Arthur cheerily,
though he regarded her with very keen observation. "There is no ogre
going to trouble you as either friend or enemy; If he does he will
have to meet me. I am the Prince, you know, and my mission in life is
to slay the wicked ogres."
"Oh! but his poor wife and his children!" half sobbed Daisy; "couldn't
you lock him up in a tower, dear Prince?"
Arthur smiled, and gradually managed to lead the child's thoughts into
another direction. He was already gaining the greatest possible
influence over her, and he managed, on the occasion of his second
visit, to coax her to let him carry her across to Miss Egerton's for a
couple of hours. Dove met them as Arthur was carrying the child away,
and he first scowled, and then smiled obsequiously. Daisy turned
deadly white, and Noel felt that she trembled.
[Illustration: DOVE MET THEM. Palace B]
"I'm coming back to-night, Mr. Dove," she called out, in a shaky
little voice; and Dove answered--
"Pleased to hear it, missy; the attics would be lonesome without you,
missy."
"Daisy," whispered Noel, "tell me something--is Dove the ogre?"
"Oh, don't, don't, Mr. Prince!" answered back the child. "No, no, of
course not; why, he's only poor Mr. Dove--a friend of mine."
When Daisy reached Miss Egerton's and found herself seated in that
lady's cosy little drawing-room, with sponge-cakes _ad libitum_ to
eat, and Noel sitting by and willing to give up all his time to her
benefit, she cheered up wonderfully; a faint color came to her white
little cheeks, and Miss Egerton, as she passed the open drawing-room
door, heard one or two silvery peals of laughter coming from her lips.
"Bless the child!" thought the kind woman; "how much better she is
when she is out of that house. What nice influence that good fellow,
Arthur, has over her. I do trust the silly little one will soon give
up her fancies--for they surely can be nothing but fancies--and come
to live with me."
But when the twilight fell Daisy ceased to laugh, the anxious and
troubled look returned to her face, and after a time she said to
Arthur, in her pretty coaxing way--
"Take me home now, please, Mr. Prince."
Two days afterwards Noel called at the girls' lodgings Daisy alone was
in, but to all his entreaties she now turned a deaf ear. No, she did
not want to go out; she would rather stay in her own dear, nice old
attics; she was never so happy anywhere as in her own attics. She was
very fond of Miss Egerton, but she did not think she would like to
live with her. Miss Egerton kept a bird, and Daisy had a great
dislike to birds.
"Please, Mr. Prince," she said, in conclusion, "stay with me here for
an hour or two, and tell me a beautiful story."
Noel was rather clever at making up impromptu stories, and he now
proceeded to relate a tale with a moral.
"There was a kind lady who had prepared lovely
guest-chambers--beautiful they were, and worthy of a palace."
Here Noel stopped, and looked hard at his little listener.
"Do you know why they were so lovely, little maid?"
"No; please tell me, Mr. Prince. Oh, I am sure this is going to be a
real true fairy tale--how delicious!" and Daisy leaned back on her
sofa with a sigh of content.
"The rooms were beautiful, Daisy," continued Arthur "because the walls
were papered with Goodness and the chairs, and the tables, and the
carpets, and the sofas, and the thousand-and-one little knick-knacks,
were placed in the rooms by Self-Denial, and the windows were polished
very brightly by Love herself, and she kept the key which opened the
chamber doors."
"How sweet!" said Daisy.
"Yes; there were two rooms, and they were very sweet. To live there
meant to get into an abode of peace. As to ogres, they would fall down
dead on the threshold of such rooms. There were only two, and they
were up high in a small house, and without the gilding and the glory
which I spoke of they would have seemed humble enough, but to those
who knew their secret, and what their owner had done for her expected
guests, they appeared a very Palace Beautiful. Now, Daisy, I must tell
you something so sad. The rooms were ready, but the guests did not
arrive. Three guests were expected, but the kind lady who had prepared
the rooms, who had papered them with Goodness, and furnished them with
Self-Denial, and brightened them with Love, waited and longed for her
visitors in vain.
"Two of the visitors were most anxious to come, but one--a little
one--although she looked very gentle and had a sweet expression and
blue eyes, and seemed quite the sort of little girl who would not
willingly hurt a fly, held back. It never entered into her head that
she was selfish, and was making two or three people who loved her both
anxious and unhappy. She preferred to live in rooms which, by
comparison, were like dungeons; for the owners had never put Love into
them, and had never thought of Self-Denial in connection with them.
There, Daisy-flower, I have done. It seems a pity that the little girl
should have been so selfish, does it not?"
"But how does the story end, Mr. Arthur? You have really only just
begun."
"I only know the beginning, Daisy," said Noel, as he rose to leave. "I
have not an idea whether that Palace Beautiful will ever receive its
visitors, whether that kind lady will ever be made happy, or whether
that little girl will ever cease to be selfish."
A few moments afterwards Noel went away, and poor Daisy turned her
face to the wall and wept.
Of course, the very obvious moral had hit her hard, poor little maid!
Oh! if she could really only confide in Arthur--he was so nice and
strong, and he looked so contemptuously at Mr. Dove that day when he
was carrying Daisy across the road to Miss Egerton's.
"I don't believe he would be afraid of Mr. Dove," she whispered
softly, under her breath. "Oh dear! why am I so terribly frightened?
Why does he make my heart beat? and why do I shake so when I see him?
Well, I'll never tell about his bringing me up the sticky
sweetmeats--of course I'll not tell. I promised I wouldn't; it would
be dreadful to break one's promise. Of course I know where people go
who break their promises. No, I promised Mr. Dove, and I must always,
and always, and always keep my word; but I did not promise him that
I'd stay here. He wanted me to, and I just had it on the tip of my
tongue, for I was dreadfully frightened, but he heard a noise, and he
went away. I'm so glad I didn't promise, because the Prince says I
should go and live in the Palace Beautiful. He thinks I'm a selfish
little girl. Oh dear! how terrified I shall be, but I won't be a
selfish little girl, and keep Primrose and Jasmine away from the
Palace, and break the kind lady's heart. I must try and write a very
private little note to Mr. Dove, and tell him that though I am going
away I'll always and always keep my word about the sweeties, and I'll
always be his truest of friends, although I do fear him more than
anything in the world."
Here Primrose came in, and poor little Daisy roused herself, and tried
to talk cheerfully.
"Primrose," she said, "do you mind my writing a letter which nobody is
to see?"
Primrose laughed.
"You funny pet!" she said; "if no one is to see the letter why do you
trouble to write it?"
"I only mean, Primrose," continued Daisy, "that you are not to see it,
nor Jasmine, nor Miss Egerton, nor Mr. Noel. It is to--to somebody;
but you are not to be curious, Primrose, nor to ask any questions.
It's a most terribly important letter, and when it's written I'm going
to put it in the post myself. I'll go out with you, and you must turn
your back when I drop it into the pillar-box. You'll be very happy
when it's written, Primrose, and I'm doing it for you and Jasmine, and
because I won't be a selfish little girl."
Primrose stooped down and kissed Daisy.
"You may write your letter and post it," she said, "and I'll try not
to be the least bit curious, Eyebright. Now sit down and write away,
you have a nice quiet hour before Jasmine comes in to tea."
"So I have," answered Daisy; "thank you, Primrose. Please don't say
anything to me when I'm writing."
Then Daisy in her corner blotted her fingers, and brought a deep flush
to her little pale face, and ruined several sheets of note-paper, all
of which she carefully tore up to the smallest fragments. At last an
epistle, over which she sighed and trembled, and even dropped tears,
was finished. It ran as follows:--
"MY DEAR FRIEND, MR. DOVE,--I always and always will be most true to
you. I would not be such a wicked little girl as to break my word for
anything I'm going always to keep it, and tortures, even the
Inquisition, and even the rack, wouldn't get it out of me. Did you
ever hear of the rack, Mr. Dove? but perhaps you had better not know.
Yes, I'll always keep my word, the word that I promised, and no one
shall ever know about you and me and the sticky sweetmeats; but I
won't keep the word that I didn't promise. You remember how you wanted
me to give you another word that I'd always stay here, and keep
Primrose and Jasmine here, instead of letting them go and going with
them to the Palace Beautiful. I almost promised you, for you looked so
fierce, and your eyes were so bloodshot, and cruel, and terrible, and
I'd great work to keep remembering that you were really my friend; but
I'm so glad I did not give you that word too, for now I know that I'd
have done very wrong. A Prince has come to me, Mr. Dove, and told me I
am very selfish to try to keep my sisters out of the Palace Beautiful.
He says the walls are covered with Goodness and the furniture is put
there by Self-Denial, and the windows are shining because Love has
polished them up. He says there's no Love and no Goodness here, and he
calls your rooms dungeons. He's a very, very strong Prince, and he
kills ogres--he even kills ogres who are friends to little girls.
Please, Mr. Dove, this is to say that I'm going away to the Palace
Beautiful, and that I'll always keep my word about the sweeties.
"Your true little friend,
DAISY."
Then Daisy fastened her letter, and directed it to Mr. Dove, No. 10,
Eden Street, and she asked Primrose for a stamp, and then she and her
eldest sister went out, and Primrose turned her back while Daisy
dropped the letter into the nearest pillar-box.
The moment this was done the child gave a little skip, and caught
Primrose's hand, and squeezed it hard, and said, in an excited voice--
"Now I've done it! I'm not going to be the selfish little girl who
breaks people's hearts. Primrose, darling let us hurry back to the
dungeons, and put all our things together, so that we may reach the
Palace Beautiful to-night."
Poor Primrose, who was not in Daisy's secret, and knew nothing of
Arthur Noel's allegory, was conscious of a momentary wild fear that
her little sister had taken leave of her senses; but she soon began to
see meaning in Daisy's words, and was only too glad to yield to the
child's caprice at once.
That very night, therefore, Miss Egerton's nice rooms were occupied,
and that good lady laid her head on her own pillow with a light and
thankful heart.
Fortunately for Daisy, Dove was out while the packing was going on,
and only Mrs. Dove, with a very black scowl on her face, saw the girls
drive away in a four-wheeler. She refused to say good-bye to them,
and was heard to mutter that the "ongratitude of some folks was past
enduring."
"Here, Dove," she said, when late that night her lord and master came
in, "those pretty young ladies as you thought so much of--'the attics'
I called them, and always will call them--well, they're gone. They had
a four-wheeler, and off they've gone, bag and baggage. For my part I
ain't sorry, for now that them attics are painted up and cleaned,
which they did out of their own money, I may be able to rise my rent.
Those young ladies and I couldn't have kept together much longer.
Disobliging, I call them--disobliging, and shabby, and mistrustful;
it was only this morning I asked Miss Mainwaring for the loan of seven
and sixpence, and she up and said, 'I'm sorry I can't oblige you, Mrs.
Dove.' Those kind of young ladies don't suit me, and I'm thankful
they're gone. Why, Dove, how you do stare!--there's a letter waiting
for you on the table."
Dove took up his letter and read it carefully once or twice; after his
second reading he put it into his pocket, and turned to his wife--
"They've gone round to Miss Egerton's; isn't that so, my love?"
"Who do you mean by 'they,' Dove?"
"The three young ladies, of course."
"Oh, I suppose so; but I neither know nor care--I wash my hands of
them from this day forward!"
"Well, then, look here, Mrs. Dove, my love," said the husband, "I
_don't_ wash my hands of them--no, not by no means. It's all right if
they're gone to Miss Egerton's--there are trap-doors in the roof at
Miss Egerton's; I know the build of the house. There are trap-doors in
the roof, and quarter-day is coming on, Mrs. Dove, my only love!"
"Law, Dove! you have a most startling way of saying them poetic
lines," answered his wife.