Part 50 (1/2)

”And, oh, Grandpapa, can't we go to Fontainebleau to-day?” begged Polly.

”Phronsie, just think--it will be precisely like the country, and we can get out of the carriages, and can run and race in the forest. Can't we, Grandpapa?”

”All you want to,” promised Grandpapa, recklessly, and only too thankful to have something proposed for a diversion. ”The very thing,”

he added enthusiastically. ”Now, Polly and Phronsie, run and tell all the others to get ready, just as fast as they can, and we'll be off.

Goodness me, Jasper, what makes you run into a room in this fas.h.i.+on?”

”I've found him!” exclaimed Jasper, das.h.i.+ng in, and tossing his cap on the table, and his dark hair back from his forehead. ”And he's all right--as straight as a die,” he panted.

”Now what in the world are you talking of?” demanded his father, in extreme irritation. ”Can't you make a plain statement, and enlighten us without all this noise and confusion, pray tell?”

Polly, who had Phronsie's hand in hers, just ready to run off, stood quite still with glowing cheek.

”Oh, I do believe--Grandpapa--it is--it is!”--she screamed suddenly--”your poor man! Isn't it, Jasper--isn't it?” she cried, turning to him.

”Yes, Polly,” said Jasper, still panting from his run up the stairs; ”and do hurry, father, and see for yourself; and we'll all go to him.

I'll tell you all about it on the way.”

When Mr. King comprehended that the man was found, and that he was ”all right,” as Jasper vehemently repeated over and over, he communicated that fact to Phronsie, whose delight knew no bounds, and in less time than it takes to write it, Tom, who was the only one of the party to be collected on such short notice, had joined them, and they were bowling along in a big carriage, Jasper as guide, to the spot where the man was waiting.

”You see it was just this way,” Jasper was rapidly telling off. ”I was going down by the Madeleine, and I thought I would bring Phronsie some flowers; so I stopped at the market, and I couldn't find a little pot of primroses I wanted, though I went the whole length; and at last, when I had given up, I saw just one in front of a woman who sat at the very end.”

”Do hurry, Jasper, and get to the conclusion,” said his father, impatiently.

Polly dearly loved to have the story go on in just this way, as she leaned forward, her eyes on Jasper's face, but she said nothing, only sighed.

”Well,” said Jasper, ”I'll tell it as quickly as I can, father. And there were a lot of children, father, all round the woman where she sat on a box, and she was tying in a bunch some flowers that were huddled in her lap, and the children were picking out the good ones for her; and just then a man, who was bending over back of them all, breaking off some little branches from a big green one, straightened up suddenly, and, father, as true as you live,” cried Jasper, in intense excitement, ”it was your poor man!”

”The children?” asked Mr. King, as soon as he could be heard for the excitement.

”Are all his,” cried Jasper, ”and he took the money you gave him, and set his wife up in the flower business down in front of the Madeleine.

Oh! and Phronsie, the doll you gave him was sitting up on another box, and every once in a while the littlest girl would stop picking out the flowers in her mother's lap, and would run over and wipe its face with her ap.r.o.n.”

XXVIII

”WELL, I GOT HIM HERE,” SAID THE LITTLE EARL

They were really on their way to see the little old earl, after all!

How it came about, Mr. King, even days after it had all been decided, couldn't exactly remember. He recalled several conversations in Paris with Tom's mother, who showed him bits of letters, and one in particular that somehow seemed to be a very potent factor in the plan that, almost before he knew it, came to be made. And when he held out, as hold out he did against the acceptance of the invitation, he found to his utmost surprise that every one, Mother Fisher and all, was decidedly against him.

”Oh, well,” he had declared when that came out, ”I might as well give in gracefully first as last.” And he sat down at once and wrote a very handsome note to the little old earl, and that clinched the whole business.

And after the week of this visit should be over, for old Mr. King was firmness itself on not accepting a day more, they were to bid good-by to Mrs. Selwyn and Tom, and jaunt about a bit to show a little of Old England to the Hendersons, and then run down to Liverpool to see them off, and at last turn their faces toward Dresden, their winter home--”and to my work!” said Polly to herself in delight.

So now here they were, actually driving up to the entrance of the park, and stopping at the lodge-gate.