Part 6 (1/2)
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 subst.i.tute for the unwholesome concoctions of the confectioner; it satisfied her craving for sweets, and did not poison her appet.i.te.
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 Celeste'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 would accept 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 Celeste that she declines her offer,” said Adelaide. ”_We_ must 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.
CHAPTER V.
LITTLE PRINCE DEL PARADISO.
[Ill.u.s.tration: {Drawing of the little Prince del Paradiso.}]
That day the botany cla.s.s 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 myself _egare_--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, n.o.bilitie, _la plus haute n.o.blesse_, 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 t.i.tle, 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 house _provisionellement_, till his rights and his--his--what you call--his sameness?”
”You mean his ident.i.ty?”
”Yes, yes, his die ent.i.ty 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?”