Part 28 (2/2)

The feeding was really through with, and Sally, trembling and flus.h.i.+ng, went back to the side of her Fairy Prince.

He held out his hand, and Sally put hers into it.

”Let me look at you,” he said.

Sally went nearer.

”Yes, it is the very face! The one that bent over me in the woods. Tell me,” he said, ”did you not give me water when I lay stunned one day near Lover's Lane?”

”Yes,” said Sally.

”And tell me,” he asked again, his face getting flushed and his voice rising, ”have I not seen your face since, just for an instant? But the eyes, the dimples, the mouth are the same. When was it?”

He was getting wrought up, and Mammy grew anxious.

”Do fo' de goodness sake tell 'im ebberyting you know, and hab done with it!” she said, in a low tone, twitching Sally's sleeve. ”It won't do to cross 'im nohow; he'll be down with de fever jinks, first ting we know.”

Sally bent over him, her dark eyes meeting his blue ones.

”They told of your being a prisoner,” she said, simply, ”and I thought it a shame. I wanted to help the country, so I brought you Hotspur. You saw me hiding in a tree. Now please let me go,” and she tried to draw away her hand.

But the Fairy Prince took the hand in both his own and softly kissed it.

His face paled, and he calmed down as he said:

”Promise me you will not go away.”

”I promise not to go away until I must,” said Maid Sally.

Then Mammy fed her ”babby,” and gave him a soothing dose of steeped skullcap, which drowsy herb soon had him in a quiet sleep.

Sally went about in a Fairy-like dream.

The back of her right hand seemed to have been touched with a golden wand where the Fairy Prince had kissed it.

Yet she was puzzling over the question how best to answer when her Prince would seek to know more about her, as he surely would.

Tell her own story she never could, at least not the first part of it.

At length she murmured:

”Oh, my good Fairy, please tell me once more what had I better do?”

And the Fairy answered:

”Why not tell Mammy Leezer the truth about the pine woods, and let her repeat it? She loves the Fairy Prince with all her heart, and would dress up the story in rosiest colors.

”What if you were a poor little girl then, or thought to be? Mammy knew you had a fine father, and will say so. And what if the Fairy Prince finds out that twice you were in a tree when he needed help? Fairies are supposed to lurk in forests and midst trees and flowers.

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