Page:Mistress Madcap Surrenders (1926).pdf/65

 Here, just as Mistress Nancy had once paused to stare unseeingly ahead of her, so Charity stopped and stared, until Mehitable moved impatiently.

"Yes?" said Mehitable. "She saw what?"

"She saw that the Prince was not alone; but walking wi' a lady gowned in silver, prettier e'en than the Princess's own dress. Then as they neared a bower, the Princess knew that this maid was the unworthy one from overseas! They stopped—the Princess was upon them, for she had been hurrying toward them—and then she saw the Prince stoop and kiss this unworthy maid and heard him whisper, 'I love you!

"Oh!" Mehitable's voice was shocked, just as Charity's had been that long-ago time when poor Mistress Nancy's voice had trembled and she had caught the little girl to her, so that the rest of the story had come tumbling to its end through Charity's fair curls.

"But, you see," went on Charity's voice now, as she sat with her eyes fixed carefully upon the hands she was clasping so nervously in her lap, "you see, Hitty, the story ended much nicer—for Nancy—than she knew at that time it would. For the masker i' black was not the Prince! Someone had borrowed his mask suit o' black—it seems he, himself, had been called out upon a case o' sickness at the last minute—and this other man had kissed the unworthy maid."