THE YOUNGEST PRINCESS:

OR

LITTLE MEANS TO BIG ENDS.

BY

JENNIE CHAPPELL

Author of "Berne's Bargain;" "Little Radiance;" "The Man of the Family;" &c.

Lucem Libris • Disseminumus.

LONDON:

BLACKIE & SON, LIMITED, 49 OLD BAILEY, E.C.

GLASGOW, EDINBURGH, AND DUBLIN.

CONTENTS. ————

Chap.

I. MINNIE, MAUD, AND MARGERIE

II. DESERTED

III. EXPLANATIONS

IV. ANXIOUS TIMES

V. MARGERIE'S ADVENTURE

VI. BLACK-EYED AND BAREFOOT

VII. GRANDMOTHER

VIII. AWAY FROM HOME

IX. A MYSTERY

X. THE COAL-CELLAR WINDOW

XI. "NED'S ENOUGH!"

XII. A BRAVE CONFESSION

XIII. SITTING ON A PLANK

XIV. REUNION

THE YOUNGEST PRINCESS.

CHAPTER I.

MINNIE, MAUD, AND MARGERIE.

OUT in the quiet street the soft, cold snow lay thick; the round middle bed in the small front garden of Briar Cottage gleamed smooth and white in the gathering dusk like the top of a giant Twelfth-cake; the path was hidden, the bushes were loaded, the windowsill was piled high with a downy drift, yet the crystal flakes were still falling—falling—falling. Silently, ceaselessly they floated by millions through the breathless air, that was strangely lightened by their whiteness, and there were millions more to come. Long afterwards, that January evening which was then closing in was remembered as "the night of the great snowstorm."

Within the crimson-curtained window that made a spot of glowing radiance in the weird, pale, out-of-door gloaming, the firelight was ruddy, the shadows deep and soft. One of three small figures cosily huddled together on the rug thrust the poker into the heart of the biggest lump of coal, and then—! What a sudden leaping and dancing of the freed flame-sprites, what a mingling and bobbing of bright and dark in the corners of the room, what responsive gleams from spotless table-cloth and flashing tea-pot and glittering cups and spoons! Not to speak of the softer shining of three golden heads and the sparkle of six starry eyes. Soon the illumination grew more steady.

"Go on reading now, Maudie," begged Minnie, the eldest of the three. "Read us that piece of poetry about 'The King's Daughters,'—it looks pretty. Father must be home, I should think, by the time you have done."

Maud—studious, twelve year old Maud—lifted a book that was lying at her feet, and turning so that the amber glow might irradiate the open page, read in a sweet, precise voice, but with little or no feeling, the graceful story of the three young princesses, who—

"' . . . 'Neath the palace windows straying, Had fallen into earnest talk that put an end to playing;—'"

and of how these little ladies vied with one another in expressing the greatest love for the king, their father.

"'It is I who love our father best,' the eldest daughter said; 'I am the oldest princess,' and her pretty face grew red; 'What is there none can do without? I love him more than bread.'"

The second princess, despising so poor a comparison, declared, (they didn't wear the blue ribbon in that far country!)—

"'I love him more than wine!'"

Then came the turn of "the little youngest daughter, with her eyes of steadfast gray," and she, as many of my readers know, aroused the derisive laughter of the other two by asserting only that she loved him "more than 'salt!'"

The king, too, who overheard them, was grieved that he should be thus lightly held in the affections of his favourite child. But the cook, who also had been listening, decided to prove to his master that this "little quiet thing" knew more than either of her sisters. So, by and by, at dinner-time, every dish came on the table "minus" salt.

The surprise and displeasure of the king, who yet could not discover what was wrong, and the subsequent explanation by the youngest daughter, were very prettily told in the verses Maud read. The last one ran as follows:

"'Great love through smallest channels will find its surest way; It waits not state occasions, which may not come, or may; It comforts and it blesses hour by hour and day by day.'"

"I wonder why it is always the 'youngest' princess who says and does the clever things?" observed Minnie in a somewhat dissatisfied tone, when Maud had finished. Minnie had already entered her teens, and was enjoying the first flush of dignity which that stage of advancement confers.

"Because it is only a story, I suppose; and it wouldn't do for stories to be too like real," said Maud, who appeared to have a rather poor opinion of the verisimilitude of fiction generally.

"And there's always three of them, isn't there?" said little Margerie. "Just three. Suppose 'we' all had to choose something, or say something."

"You wouldn't distinguish yourself much," observed Minnie.

"No, I expect Maud would be the best. Suppose you had to tell how much you loved our father," continued Margerie, addressing the reader, "what would you say you liked him better than?"

"The last new story!" answered Minnie for her sister. "Maud has always got her nose in a book."

"'You' would say the last new fashion!" retorted Maud. "Minnie has always got her nose in the glass."

"I should be sorry to see myself there without it," laughed Minnie, who, though she had a knack of upsetting other people's tempers, was generally good-humoured herself.

"After all," remarked Margerie, reflectively gazing into the fire as she sat on a low stool, elbows on knees, and her round little face resting in the palms of her hands, "the youngest is very often the worst. See what a torment the littlest Symmons is."

"Positive little, comparative less, superlative least," quoted Maud, didactically.

"Well, then, the least Symmons.—Oh, Maud, I don't believe that's right!—She's always crying and screaming about something or other."

"That's because the little and the less Symmonses have always been made to give her all her own way, just because she is the least," said Minnie.

"Don't be ridiculous!" said Maud, rather crossly.

"And there was father's youngest brother, too," pursued Margerie, who seldom heeded these frequent passages of arms between her elders. "Going and running away from home like he did."

"That was chiefly grandma's fault, though," remarked Maud. "Mother says so. She was so dreadfully strict and peculiar."

"She must have been an awfully exacting kind of person," said Minnie, "to have quarrelled with father on such slight grounds."

"She couldn't really have not liked mother, could she?" questioned Margerie. "Nobody could help loving her, I should think."

"It was jealousy," answered Maud. "When Tom, the middle one of the three, was dead, and after Harry had run away, all her affections were wrapped up in father. And she thought he would keep single and let her be first with him all his life. So when father got acquainted with mother and wanted to marry her, she was as angry as could be. She would give him up altogether rather than share him with anyone else."

"Funny sort of love, wasn't it?" said Margerie. "You would have thought that if she cared for him so very much, she would have been glad for somebody else to be fond of him too, especially anybody like mother."

"And he asked her to come and live with them and all," added Minnie. "He would have given her a nice room in his house, and made her as comfortable as could be, but she wouldn't. I'm glad enough she didn't, though. What a time of it we should have had with her!"

"Mother wouldn't have let her hurt us," said Margerie. "I think it is very sad for poor father to lose his own mother like that; because he is fond of her, and she was very good to him until he got married. And it is as bad as having her die, almost, not to know anything about her, or ever to hear from her, and not even to know where she lives."

"Mother says it all comes of selfishness," observed Maud. "If grandma had loved father truly, she would have cared ever so much more for him to have a nice, good wife to make him happy than to keep him all to herself. And I'm sure she can't feel satisfied to be estranged like this."

"No, she has punished herself the most, like proud and selfish people always do," said Minnie. "Here comes mother!"

CHAPTER II.

DESERTED!

"A QUARTER to six, and father not home yet!" exclaimed Mrs. Grace, glancing at the clock as she struck a match for the gas. "What can be keeping him?"

She was a rather short, rather stout lady, with wavy light brown hair, large sweet gray eyes, and a face that would be pretty all her life long, for love and kindliness and gentle mirth gave expression to every line. Margerie was the most like her of the three little girls.

The moment the light came, Maud reopened her book, Minnie stood up to "tidivate" a pet curl on her forehead by the chimney glass, and Margerie, hanging herself basket-fashion on her mother's arm, pressed a soft cheek against her shoulder with a look that said, "How nice it is to have someone to cuddle!"

"Perhaps father lost the train," suggested Minnie, pulling out and tying afresh the smart little bow of pink ribbon at her throat.

Minnie would have been, with her shining fair hair and delicate complexion, an extremely attractive looking girl, but her little self-conscious airs and graces spoilt it all. She seemed never to forget that she was pretty, and in consequence, other people found it difficult to remember.

"Traffic may be delayed by the drifts of snow," observed Mrs. Grace. "I think we may as well have tea, girls."

"Let's wait just five minutes longer," pleaded Margerie. "Father always likes to have tea with us on his early evening. He is sure to get home if he can."

"The next train will be in at three minutes past six," said Minnie. "That's two trains later than he usually is on a Thursday evening."

"That will be three—eight—thirteen minutes longer," observed Margerie; "only thirteen, mother. And I can be making some toast, can't I? Father is so fond of my toast with all the crust cut off."

"Very well," smiled Mrs. Grace, well pleased, and she whisked out her stocking-basket wherewith to improve the interval. Maud, buried in her book, was lost to all around, oblivious of tea, and unconscious that any discussion whatever had been taking place.

"There!" cried Margerie, with uplifted finger, as she stood her fourth delicately-browned slice in the china rack. "That's the train coming in now; don't you hear it? It will only take father two minutes to get from the station to our door."

"You might allow him half a minute extra on account of the weather," suggested Minnie.

"Yes, to be sure," Margerie gravely agreed. And seating herself on the corner of a chair with her toasting-fork held trident-fashion, like a small Britannia, she fixed her eyes upon the dial of the time-piece.

It was probably because their father was already overdue, and they had worked themselves up into an unusual state of expectancy by so closely calculating the time, but never in her life before had Margerie Grace watched the clock with anything like the nervous anxiety she did then.

"Half a minute is gone," she said. "He's out of the train and up the stairs. Now he's getting past the ticket man. Now he's putting up his umbrella at the door."

Years afterwards she still recollected the peculiar thrill of those almost breathless moments.

"He must have turned our corner by this time, but we sha'n't be able to hear his footsteps till he gets quite close, because of the snow."

She jumped from her chair in a feverish kind of way, and ran to the window. Parting the red curtains, she looked out. Nothing could she discern through the veil of white flakes that were falling, if possible, more thickly than ever in the darkness. Every moment it seemed that the muffled thud of footsteps must reach her ear, and the welcome form take shape amid that strange chaos without. But eye and ear were alike strained in vain.

"Put the curtain down, Margie dear; there is such a draught," said her mother at length.

Margerie obeyed. The clock was pointing to seventeen minutes past six. The child slowly and silently came back to the fireside, then to everyone's surprise suddenly burst into tears.

"My dear child!" exclaimed Mrs. Grace. "You must not be so much upset about a little thing. Father has been detained at the office, no doubt. If you set your heart so upon things turning out just as you expect, you are sure to meet with disappointment."

"What is the matter with Margie?" asked Maud, coming out of the realm of fiction with the dazed air of a person awaking from a dream.

"She made sure father would come by the 6.3 train, and he hasn't," answered Minnie.

"That was just the way to keep him away," said Maud sententiously. "The things we make so sure of, are the very things that never happen. I've noticed it over and over again."

"Quite so," rejoined teasing Minnie. "You seem to be making sure that by reading a storybook all this evening you'll keep top of the French class to-morrow."

"I won't make sure again," said Margerie, wiping her eyes—she hardly knew herself what had brought that irrepressible gush of tears; "and then perhaps he'll come."

But the next train, and the next, and still another—seven o'clock, half-past seven, eight o'clock came, and yet Mr. Grace had not returned.

His wife herself was beginning to feel no small anxiety about him, for as a rule his hours were most regular. But she would not let the children see how much she was troubled.

Nine year old Margerie, after fruitless protests, went to bed as usual at eight o'clock, her sisters an hour later.

She was still awake when they came up. "Father hasn't come home?" she said.

"No. I can see mother is getting to feel awfully worried about his being so late," replied Minnie. "I wanted to sit up and keep her company, but she wouldn't let me. It is dreadful to think of father being out somewhere in that lonely snow! I feel almost as if we oughtn't to go to bed and leave him."

"Hush!" said Maud. "You'll make Margie cry again."

Margerie's eyes were filling with tears, but she said: "God is out in the snow, though, isn't He? Just the same as in here. Perhaps more even, because of people wanting Him more."

Like a little prophetess she had spoken a word of comfort to them all, and resting on it as on a pillow soft and firm, the three sisters soon fell asleep. The love and power of our Father pervades every inch of the universe; it must be so, or He could not be God. He was with everybody's dear ones out in that terrible storm, He was guarding the children under their safe home-roof, He was sustaining the trembling watcher in the room below. But oh! the loneliness, the fear-filled stillness of the house when the maid too had gone up to her attic, and midnight drew on, and Mrs. Grace was the only one awake! And still her husband did not come.

Early in the small hours Maud awoke with the toothache. She bore it quietly for some time, hearing the clock strike two, meanwhile. But as it did not get better and she could not go to sleep, she slipped out of bed, wrapped herself in a shawl, and tip-toed to her mother's chamber-door. She had no doubt that both her parents were by this time asleep within.

She tapped, but received no answer. She tapped again. She opened the door a little way and said, "Mother!"

She repeated the word a little louder—when before had it failed to meet with a ready response?—but all was silence. She peeped in. The blinds were still up, and the pallid gleam from the snow outside fell upon a smooth and vacant bed. No one was there!

A strange terror at her heart frightening the toothache away, she sped with trembling limbs down the stairs. The lower part of the house was in total darkness. The parlour door stood open; the gas was turned down; a dull red spot indicated the position of the grate, but the dying ashes seemed to have been untended for hours.

"Mother!" she cried aloud, in a horror of desertedness. "Mother! 'Mother!'"

Not a sound came in response but the weird moan of the snow-bringing wind, and the soft pat of great icy flakes against the pane. Even the clock had stopped, and the house was as silent as a tomb.

CHAPTER III.

EXPLANATIONS.

NEVER will Maud forget the unutterable sense of desolation that swallowed her up at that moment of realizing that her mother was nowhere within call; that she had left them, and gone out into the woeful storm, out alone, as the girl at first believed, to seek their missing father.

Minnie, awakened in terror by Maud's last piercing cry of "Mother!" met her white and trembling on the landing as she went back to the bed-room.

"Oh, Maud, what is it? What is the matter?" she distressfully questioned.

"Mother's gone!"

"Gone! Gone where? You must have been dreaming, child!" exclaimed the elder girl.

"I've not. I wish I was!" answered Maud between her chattering teeth. "Father has never been home—their room is empty—and now I can't find mother!"

Shivering though she was with cold and fright, poor Maud sat down on the top stair, and began to cry.

"Sh-sh! Don't make a noise; go back to bed both of you!" said the voice of Ellen the servant from above. "You'll catch your deaths standing out there."

"Where's mother, then?"

"Gone to the hospital, to see your pa. Go right back into bed, now, if you want me to tell you. Lawkamussy, what a night I'm having! We shall all be laid up to-morrow."

Thus adjured, the girls huddled down beneath the bed-clothes again.

"What's happened to father? What hospital? Has he had an accident?" they queried breathlessly.

"Hush now! Don't wake your poor little sister," said Ellen in a loud whisper. "Let her sleep on in peace, if she may. Your ma came up to me," continued the girl, seating herself on the side of the bed, "just as I was dropping off to sleep—near upon twelve it was, for somehow I couldn't forget myself, try all I might, which isn't like me, particular after a hironin' day—and says that a gentleman from St. Mercy's Hospital had come to tell her as how your pa had met with a haccident, and been took there, and there was just time for her to catch the last train."

"To go to him! Oh, Ellen, is he much hurt?" asked the girls in tones of dread. "How did it happen? When? Where?"

"I don't know no more than I've told you," said the maid. "Your ma was off again like a shot, but as quiet as a mouse.

"'I do hope those poor children won't wake,' she said.

"And now I am going to bed again," concluded Ellen. "I declare every bone in my body's a-shakin'. Get to sleep again as fast as you can. It's no manner of use for you to go frettin' and making yourselves ill."

"Oh, don't go yet, Ellen!" begged Maud, clutching the girl's sleeve. "Do you think it's anything very serious?"

"Well, I should reckon it is by their sending for your ma at twelve o'clock at night, and such a night as this."

"Oh, what 'shall' we do? Whatever shall we do?" wailed Minnie.

"Go to sleep again, I tell you, and not keep me standin' here while my very feet freeze to the floor!" returned Ellen, with not wholly inexcusable brusqueness. "I've told you all I know; so, good-night!"

And away she sped.

Little Margerie had lain undisturbed through it all; her soft, regular breathing telling of peaceful sleep.

"Oh! Isn't it 'dreadful?' Oh, Maudie, what shall we do?" said Minnie again, as the sisters clung together. "What 'can' have happened to father? Fancy poor dear mother being fetched to go to him like that! Hark at the wind! Oh, Maudie, I do wish I'd helped mother mend the stockings last night instead of doing up that lace thing!"

"I wish I'd gone and helped father on with his greatcoat in the morning instead of sticking over the fire reading!" rejoined Maud. "And now, perhaps, he'll ne-ever want his greatcoat again!"

And overcome with these self-reproachful recollections—such as ever cut the most deeply of all in times of trouble—the girls mingled their tears and sobs in each other's arms.

"We haven't been nearly as good to father and mother as we ought, have we?" whispered Minnie, still burdened by the thought of admonitions disregarded and duties left undone. "If only God will have mercy on us, and let them both come safe back to us, we will be better—won't we, Maudie?"

"Yes," answered Maud. Then she suggested: