Part 11 (1/2)

”My tear child,” she said, kindly, drawing nearer to us, ”how you haf suffer! Yes, you have done a sin, but you are sorry, and G.o.d he forgive ze sorrowful.”

”But do you forgive me, Miss Prillwitz?” Winnie cried, pa.s.sionately.

”Can you ever love me again?”

”Yes, my tear, I forgive you freely, and I love you more as ever.”

”And the elder brother and Jim? Have Jim's expectations been raised?

Will he be greatly disappointed, and will the prince be very angry?”

”My tear, in all zis it is not as you have t'inked. See, you haf not understand my way of talk. I t'ink Giacomo will, all ze same, pretty soon go to his Fazzer's house. Ze elder brother is may be gone wiz him by now. You have not, then, understand zat dis elder brother is ze Lord Christ? zat ze beautiful country is Heaven? Our little Giacomo lie very sick. Ze doctor, whom justly you did meet, he gif no hope. His poor muzzer sit by him so sad, so sad, it tear my heart. She cannot see he go to ze palace to be one Prince del Paradiso.”

We sat bolt upright, dazed and stunned by this astounding information.

”Do you mean to say,” Winnie said, slowly, grasping her head as though laboring to concentrate her ideas, ”that Jim is dying, and that he is no more a prince than any of us? I mean that the other boy is not a real prince, and that no child ever strayed away from its father's house, or elder brother has been seeking for a lost one? Oh Miss Prillwitz, how could you make up such a story?”

”My tear, my tear, it is all true, and I t'ought you to understand my leetle vay of talk. Giacomo is a prince in disguise; you, my tears, are daughters of ze great King. Zat uzzer boy, ze butcher, he also inherit ze same heavenly palace. All ze children what come in zis world haf wander avay from zat home, and ze elder brother he go up and down looking for ze lost. He gif me commission; he gif effery Christians commission to find zose lost prince--to teach him and fit him for his high position. I did not have intention to deceive you, my tear. It was my little vay of talk.”

”Oh! oh!” exclaimed Winnie, ”I feel as if my brain were turning a somersault, but I cannot realize it. Then I did not really deceive you, after all, Miss Prillwitz, though I was just as wicked in intending to do so. And Jim--do not say there is no hope!”

”No, my tear. I know all ze time zis was not ze boy I expect. But I say to myself, 'How he come I know not, but he is also ze child of ze King.' Ze elder brother want him to be care for also. May be ze elder brother send him, and I take him very gladly. And surely, I never find one child to prove his t.i.tle to be one Prince of Paradise better as Giacomo. So gentle, so loving, so generous and soughtful. I not wonder at all ze elder brother want him. I sank him, I sank you, too, Winnie, I have privilege to know one such lovely character.”

Miss Prillwitz looked at her watch. ”I can no longer,” she said quickly, and hurried back to her home. We crossed the park thoughtfully and entered the school. There was just time to tell the girls the news before chapel. The knowledge that dear Jim was lying at death's door overwhelmed every other consideration, and yet we talked over Miss Prillwitz's little allegory also.

”We were stupid not to see through it at first,” said Adelaide. ”She is just the woman to create an ideal world for herself and to live in it. I have no grudge against her because we misunderstood her meaning, and yet there certainly is something very fine in Jim's nature.”

”Now I think it all over,” said Emma Jane, ”she has said nothing which was not true.”

”I understand her letter better now,” I said. ”We have all been parts of a beautiful parable, and we have been as thickheaded as the disciples were when Jesus said, 'O fools, and slow of heart to believe.'”

Milly was silently weeping. ”All the beauty of the idea doesn't change the fact that Jim is dying,” she said.

”I have never loved any one so since I lost my mother and my baby brother,” said Adelaide. ”I can't remember how he looked--it was ten years ago, and I have no photographs, only this cameo pin, which father bought because it reminded him of mother. Not the face either, only the turn of the neck. He said she had a beautiful neck--and as he came home from his business at night he always saw her sitting in her little sewing-chair by the window looking every now and then over her shoulder for him with her neck turned so, and her profile clear cut against the dark of the room like the two colors of agate in this cameo.”

It is not natural for girls to talk freely on what stirs them most deeply, and little more was said on the subject that morning, but we each thought a great deal, and if our hearts could have been laid bare to each other, we would have been startled by the similarity of the trains of thought which this event had roused. All through the morning's lessons our imaginations wandered to the house across the park, and we wondered whether all was indeed over, and dear, cheery, helpful Jim had gone. We did not remember that we had declared we would gladly let him go to an earthly princedom, and yet this was far better for him. Our imaginations saw only the white upturned face upon the pillow, the grief-stricken mother, and Miss Prillwitz flitting about drawing the sheet straight, and placing white lilacs in his hands.

Adelaide confessed to me, long after, that all of her worldly thoughts in reference to visiting Jim some day came back to her in a strange, sermonizing way. She said that in her secret heart she had rather dreaded the visit because she knew so little of the etiquette of foreign courts, and was afraid she might make some mistake. She had even studied several books on the subject, and knew the sort of costume it was necessary to wear in a royal presentation, just the length of the train, the degree of decolletee, and the veil, and the feathers. The thought came over her with great vividness that she had never studied the etiquette of Heaven or attempted to provide herself with garments fit for the presence of the King. Mrs. Hetterman had a habit of singing quaint old hymns. There was one which we often heard echoing up from the bas.e.m.e.nt--

”At His right hand our eyes behold The queen arrayed in purest gold; The world admires her heavenly dress, Her robe of joy and righteousness.”

This sc.r.a.p was borne in upon Adelaide's mind now. ”A robe of joy and righteousness,” she thought to herself; ”I wonder how it is made! it surely must be becoming.”

Then she thought again of her mingled motives, of how glad she had been that she had befriended Jim because she could claim him as an acquaintance as a prince, in that foreign country, and how she had wished that she might entertain more traveling members of the n.o.bility in his country in order to have more acquaintances at court. ”If the poor are Christ's brothers and sisters,” she said to herself, ”I have abundant opportunity to make many friends.h.i.+ps which may be carried over into that unknown country;” and a new purpose awoke in her heart, which had for its spring not the most unselfish motives, but a strong one, and destined to achieve good work, and to give place in time to higher aims.

Afternoon came, and no message had arrived from Jim. ”Girls,” said Adelaide, as we sat in the Amen Corner, ”if Jim dies, I propose that we carry this sort of work on of fitting poor children for something higher, and broaden it, as a memorial to him. I don't exactly see my way yet, but we can do a good deal if we band together and try.”

”Oh! don't talk about Jim's dying,” said Milly, ”we'll do it, anyway.”