Page:The Floating Prince - Frank R Stockton.djvu/188



ORIS was a little girl, about eleven years old, who lived with her father, in a very small house among the mountains of a distant land. He was sometimes a wood-cutter, and sometimes a miner, or a ploughman, or a stone-breaker. Being an industrious man he would work at anything he could do when a chance offered, but as there was not much work to do in that part of the country, poor Jorn often found it very hard to make a living for himself and Loris.

One day, when he had gone out early to look for work, Loris was in her little sleeping-room under the roof, braiding her hair. Although she was so poor, Loris always tried to make herself look as neat as she could, for that pleased her father. She was just tying the ribbon on the end of the long braid, when she heard a knock at the door below. "In one second," she said to herself, "I will go. I must tie this ribbon tightly, for it would never do to lose it."

And so she tied it, and ran down-stairs to the door; there was no one there.

"Oh, it is too bad!" cried Loris. "Perhaps it was some one with a job for father. He told me always to be very careful about answering a knock at the door, for there was no knowing when some one might come with a good job, and now some one 173