The blind princess

Chapter I. My Childhood

WAS nurse to my little lady, the princess Linda, till she was three years old. She was as pretty a baby as ever was seen — with eyes so beautifully soft and blue, with a touch of that starry light that always makes even prosaic people think of the angels.

I never thought her path would be strewn with thorns. Let me go back a little to my

(j THE BLIND PRINCESS.

own childhood. I can't remember when I was taken from my home. Among my first recollections is one of a very tall, straight, and severe looking old lady, who was cutting bread for me at an oaken table in the great kitchen of a castle. I fancied she liked me, for sometimes she would take my hand when she walked out. She always wore a black dress, with a small, queer handkerchief, bordered with black, round her neck, and her eyes were as bright as diamonds. Her caps set very high indeed, and were as white as snow. She always clearstarched them herself.

I never saw many of the other inmates, beside her, for she was the housekeeper, and quite proud and stately.

" Mind, child," she would say to me, " never go near the under servants. I have taken you because you look like a little girl I had once, and I am going to bring you up very earefully."

"And did the little girl die ?" I asked, quite innocently.

Then Mrs. Steinough — that was her name, but everybody called her Mrs. Stein — turned quite pale, so pale that I was frightened. But in a moment she recovered and said in a stiff, stately way, " you need never mention it again, Gretchen." It was a simple little thing to say, but I wish you could have heard it. It would have made you feel as solemn as the tomb. It did me, although I was a little child.

Mrs. Stein always dressed me in blue. I had long curls then, and did not wear a cap as I did afterwards, when I first went to service. There was an old man lived near the castle, in a little red house — a queer old man with a crook in his back, who dressed in green clothes and wore great green spectacles. One day as I was going by the gate of the castle, holding the housekeeper's hand, Mr. Grim, for that was really his name, came up and saluted us.

Mrs. Stein bowed low, as she did to everybody. Then she said to the queer old man in green, " Mr. Grim, I am going to send this little girl to your school." 0 ! how I trembled ! I can remember that the beautiful sky, and the fields, and the bright flowers in the hedges, and the splendid white walls of the castle all turned black together, for somehow I had come to be afraid of Mr. Grim, with his great spectacles and hooked nose.

" Mrs. Stein," he said, and made such a low bow, " I shall be most happy."

As for me I thought of my great doll at home, that I had christened " Bobo " — and the dog, Mrs. Stein's big dog that was given her by a sailor-nephew, who went far over the seas ; and I thought of the tortoise-shell cat, and my little treasures of stones and china and bits of bright glass, and my heart sank within me. It was so sudden — that was always the way with Mrs. Stein — nothing said beforehand, and all at once such a thunderbolt!

" How soon shall I have the pleasure ? " asked Mr. Grim, again, with another low bow.

" To-morrow week, Mr. Grim, and I trust my little girl will give you no trouble."

I tried to look up in master Grim's face, but it was impossible. There he stood, in my eyes something like a large green grasshopper.

" I dare say she will be very good indeed," returned the master ; " she ought to be very grateful, I am sure."

" Ah ! gratitude is a thing I have learned not to depend upon ; " said Mrs. Stein, with a sigh.

" Ah ! madam — aye madam ; " — and there the little man stuck and grew very red in the face, punching the ground with the point of his big umbrella.

" So I will send her to you, then, and you will be prepared;" and Mrs. Stein turned round quite suddenly and we went to the castle, the tower way. Surely the grand room never looked so pleasant, as now that I was about to leave it so many hours in the day. The scarlet plush covered furniture, the great polished wardrobe, the splendid fire — the brass fender and andirons, the tall, wax candles above on the high mantel shelf, the neat rich carpet, and above all my beloved Nick, the cat, now sitting on her own special cushion.

No wonder Mrs. Stein thought it very strange that I was so still, especially when she saw the tears, in the red firelight of the early evening, running down my cheeks.

" Wliy, child ! " she cried out, '' what is the matter ? what makes you so unhappy.,'

" Because — because " — I sobbed — " master Grim — I — I am afraid of him.''

" Afraid of master Grim, that harmless old soul ! " cried Mrs. Stein, and it was the first time I ever heard her laugh. But she stopped it suddenly, as she did everything that was strange, and taking me by the hand made me sit down by her.

Chapter II. About A Princess

0 you know," she asked, " that this house belongs to a good and great princess ? "

Of course that made me stop crying at once, for I had heard something about the princess Lina.

" I have always lived here ; " she went on — "it is my home, and I have always loved my kind mistress who, alas, is dead. Her child has been gone to school now seven years, and in seven years more she will come home here. Then you will see her and love her I hope. I think if she likes you she will take you to serve her about her person. I should hate to present to her a great ignorant girl, and for that reason I have engaged that you go to school to master Grim for two or three years at least. You must learn to be a good reader, to do sums in arithmetic, to write neatly. For the rest I shall teach you to sew and knit, and to make all kinds of puddings and pies, so that you can keep house, after me, if it should be needed," she added.

"But Mrs. Stein," I cried —

She held up her finger, a motion that always commanded silence. Then, after a moment or two of deep thought, she said, " You may, after this, call me aunt. It sounds unnatural for a child like you to say Mrs. Stein. Will you remember ? "

" Yes — aunt " — I said slowly.

" That will do very well. And now remember that you will one of these days have a situation of some responsibility, and do what you can yourself towards becoming a good young woman, fit even for the care of a great princess."

" But — aunt — " I said, and I always said it with hesitation, that is until it sounded no longer like a strange word — " was the princess a little girl when she went away from here ? "

" She was only five, Gretchen ; and oh ! she was such a darling then. I was in great trouble at one time, and I never shall forget how she tried, in her pretty way, to console me. Nick was a little kitten then, a little ball of red and yellow, and lady Lina used often to come to my room and play with it. Yes, I see her now as on that dreadful day, the kitten curled up in one arm, while the other came snuggling round my neck, and her little red lips kissed the tears away, God bless her."

" Was she a pretty little girl ? " 1 asked, forgetting about my grasshopper school-master.

* " As a picture ; come child, you shall see

her portrait to-morrow, taken when she was only four years old."

My heart beat high with pleasure as I prepared to leave the wide yellow blaze of the fire the next morning, and I pattered along the length of the large room, while Mrs. Stein pinned another little shawl over her neck, and crossed once more the long black strings of her cap. Then she took two or three keys from a large nail in a little nook, and led me into a hall from a door I had never seen open before.

It was such a glorious hall ? — all the colors of the rainbow seemed clinging to us as we walked. They came through a great circular window with blue, red, crimson and yellow panes set in — and the floor was of beautiful marbles paved in all kinds of figures ; and so

16 THE BLIND PHINCESS.

lofty were the walls that it made me almost frightened to look up, up to the very ceiling, where there were rich fresco paintings, and beautiful ornamental work.

" 0 ! aunt," I cried, " this is very splendid." " It has not looked splendid to me, since the good princess died;" said the housekeeper, and applying a key to one of the doors, we entered a magnificent room, filled with paintings — with heavy furniture, and the carpets were so thick and soft that my feet sank in at every step. But I did not see the full effect of this beautiful room, till Mrs. Stein unfastened one of the blinds, and the light poured in like a glory over such colors, such wondrous hangings of silk and lace, such marvels of statuary and rich furniture, that I could do nothhig but stand quite still, dumb with childish admiration.

Before some of the paintings were hung thin silk covers, to keep the dust out, the housekeeper said ; one of these she drew aside, revealing the face of a little child. And such a dainty, darling face it was, the light curls sweeping round it, the eyes bright with an arch, innocent mirth, the full red lips, prettier than any two rose-buds I ever saw, and smiling as if they were just opening to speak. I clapped my hands with delight, to the almost horror of the housekeeper.

" 0 ! child ! " she cried, " it's long since a noise like that has been heard in this room. She laid here " — her huslied and solemn voice quite awed and chilled me — " cold and white in all her beauty — a young woman, even then. There was her coffin, Gretchen — just in the centre — and the great white velvet pall swept to the floor. 0 ! I can see her now — the eyes that had been so large and bright shut and still'forever. There were children chanting outside, and bitter mourning in, for everybody loved her — everybody and every thing, I may say. She had been good to the poor, she was never haughty to those beneath her, she had always a smile for all around her ; she's an angel, a bright, tall angel in the heavenly world, and sometimes in my dreams I see her there."

The old housekeeper standing by the window, a bit of red on either cheek, seemed something different to me. I had never before seen her eyes moistened with tears — small and sharp and bright as they were, they had never shone in that way before. It all came up before me, as I stood there, the great mourning over the sweet lady who laid in her coffin, looking so gentle and happy in her death. How strange that in such a place of splendors, death should come ! And as if answering my thought, the housekeeper said that moment, " It was little sorrow for her to leave all this, young and lovely and loved as she "was. Only for the prince, her husband, and the dear child, I think she felt that heaven was best. Come, child, remember as you leave here, that it is nothing to the home of beauty prepared for us up there."

Chapter III. A New Arrival

!HE next day, as we were eating our breakfast, which one of the maids always spread out at a particular hour, Bose began to growl on his rug, and presently he raised himself and walked straight down the room through a long, wavering sunbeam, and stood there at the door.

The housekeeper had just raised the tea-urn, when there came something like a shout ; Bose barked sharply, and Mrs. Stein changed color as she set the tea-urn down. Presently there was a heavy step, a sound of laughing, an impatient rasping of the door handle, and there he stood, inside, all alight with the sunshine, the brightest, handsomest boy I had ever seen in my life.

" It's Robert," cried Mrs. Stein.

" Yes, auntie, it's me ; you didn't expect me so soon, but we made a splendid voyage. Hy! Bose, old fellow ! " and he patted the dog's head. " I'm just in time for breakfast ; " and he came round opposite me, " Why ! here's somebody new; I thought it was one of the neighbor's children, but I never saw her before."

" It's Gretchen, a little girl I've taken ; " Mrs. Stein was getting another cup and saucer, and I felt my face grow very red as the boy stood there looking me over ; " sit down, Robert, there's some warm biscuit at the fire ; Gretchen, move a little."

The table was so small that I had to make room for him , and when he was seated, I forgot to eat my breakfast, it was so odd to have another at the table — a noisy, impetuous boy.

He was nearly sixteen — this Robert, and quite tall, so tall that I, though nearly eleven, felt quite a baby beside him. His features were good, his eyes black and sparkling, his hair very thick and curly, with a yellow gleam in it wherever the sun touched it. His hands were large and brown, and his voice was as rich and melodious as fine music, so it seemed to me, who had had many a chance to hear old master Lench in the castle chapel. For there were services held in the chapel, a beautiful room with stone arches overhead, and a large organ at one end. And master Lench, though he was blind, played as well as many a professor I have met since, with his full sight. It seems as if I could see him now, with the white hair falling over his shoulders, and his great blue eyes that one wouldn't know had never seen, raised in a holy kind of way. He always liked me to go with him when he practiced, and I used to snuggle close up to the seat, and watch the great shadows that played about the gray stone arches. Ah ! that was the sweetest music I ever heard in my life ; and someway, oddly enough, Mrs. Stein's nephew talked like that music. When ever he spoke I couldn't help thinking of master Lench and the organ in the chapel. He ate heartily, too, and with a thorough enjoyment of his food ; indeed, everything he did was done heartily. After breakfast he had a frolic with Bose, that quite frightened me, for I should never have dared make so much noise in that quiet housekeeper's room — and I fancied once or twice that she did not quite like it, but was unwilling to speak.

" Well, I suppose you 've been all over the castle," he said at last, turning to me.

" No — not all over. I 've not been in it long, only a few months, but I have seen the chapel, and I like master Lench, he plays so beautifully, and its so grand and frightful to go in there evenings, when only the organ lamps are lighted, and fancy you see such great-—"

" Well, go on ; " he said, for I had halfstopped at a comical face he made - — fearing that he was going to laugh at me — " such great what ? "

" 0 ! figures of tall giants, and sometimes an angel with black wings stretching away across the chapel, and all sorts of queer little shining things up among the stone-arches and the great beams — and a rustling sometimes that sounds like flying fairies, only master Lench declares its the bats."

He was laughing now, and seeing that, I started up, catching Bobo to my bosom, and should have gone off quite indignant if at that moment the housekeeper had not called me. I heard him say to her that I was an original, but I did not know what it meant, then. Not long after, he found me alone and began his questions again.

" So you have been nowhere but in the chapel. That's too bad ; you ought to see the bell-tower, and the little red woman's room, and — "

" The little red woman's room," i cried breathlessly, " I never so much as heard of it before."

" And never heard the story, either."

" Never."

" I '11 tell you what — I will coax aunty for the keys, and if you and I don't have a good time exploring these old wings ! "

" I 'm SO glad you came this week ! " I said, my heart bounding with delight at all the anticipated wonders in store for me.

" Why this week ? " he asked.

" Because I am going to the grasshopper's svihool next week."

" The grasshopper's school ? " he opened his eyes wide.

"Really and truly I didn't mean to say that ; " I replied, earnestly, my cheeks growing red ; " I mean master Grim who lives in the red house."

" 0 ! yes, bless his old crooked nose, I went to his school ; " said Robert, turning his back to the fire, " and a time I had of it there, for I was as brilliant in the way of mischief as ever a two and a half-footer could be. And the old fellow was as tame and patient as — yes, you hit it — he is a great, overgrown grasshopper, hopping here, hopping there, but never doing anything very decided any way. But somehow one learns of him, for all he never has a bundle of rods tied up, hanging somewhere near him to be a terror to evil doers. You '11 like the little master Grim, Gretchen, I know you will — and won't he put the multiplication table into that curly pate of yours ; " and then he gave one of his happy, musical laughs.

I think the boy could do anything with that stern old housekeeper, for the very next day, after we came in from a walk, he prevailed upon her to let him take the keys of the castie. I had found by this time that the morning stroll was something besides the long silent walk I was in the habit of taking with Mrs. Stein. Bose was with us, too, the great, good-natured shaggy fellow ! leaping with sinuous curves of body round Robert and me, snuffing the fresh air, his eyes as sparkling as lus master's.

Hitherto I had marched along, keeping step with Mrs. Stein, and for want of interest in the beautiful sights around the castle, or rather for lack of some one to share it with me, taking but little notice. But this morning Robert was eyes and ears for me, and thought, too. He carried me to a little glen where he played when a child, and where the remains of a fairy grotto still strewed the ground. He called it a fairy grotto, and said that he heard the peasants say that they had seen the fairies with their own eyes, and they were only an inch high. I asked him if he really believed the fairies made it, and lie said that once he did. But there came an old, gray man there, one day, who told him it was built a century ago for the little daughter of a prince who lived in Thuringa castle, but, still, he said he would as lief think it was made by the fairies.

It was a splendid morning. The dew laid in living clusters of light all over the glen, and the tiny rivulet, tinged with the blue of heaven, rippled with a pebbly song through the soft, thick moss, Robert picked some pretty wild flowers, and he said one of them reminded him of a little child that returned to Germany with them, on the last voyage. " A beautiful boy, Gretchen, whose name was Bernardo. His parents were Germans, and had been to that great new Republic they call America."

But since I have been a woman I have often thought of that sweet story, and I believe I will write it out so that it may have a place by itself. I shall call it —

BERNARDO, THE LITTLE BLIND HERO.

A COTTAGE STOKY.

In a little cottage covered on the front by scarlet roses that had been trained to climb over them for years, lived one of the happiest families that ever emigrated from the fatherland to America. The father had gone several miles away to work, the boy cheered his mother up while she went about her daily tasks, with the sweetest music. He had a tiny violin, and drew such strains from it, sometimes, that people listened with shining eyes, and sometimes the tears fell from them.

He sat there one night drawing the \mw softly from string to string.

" Just hear, mother," he cried softly, " is'nt it pretty ? It makes the old fiddle sound like a fine new one, don't it ? "

" It is beautiful, darling ; " said his mother, who had laid her work down that she might listen, and gazed with pride upon her handsome boy.

He sat in the red sunlight, reflected back from the soft, ruddy clouds, with feather-like fringing of red and purple, that made the whole western sky a crimson glory — a little child, only nine years old."

" It's the finest I've heard you play yet, lad; thou must get it quite perfect against thy father comes. He will think even the birds never sang so sweetly."

" And do you believe he will buy me a new bow, mother ? This poor old thing ! Look how the hairs are broken and curled up, and it's so heavy it tires my arm sometimes."

The way the boy took up the bow and held it, not towards his mother, but towards a table that stood' opposite, on which were some flowers in a little china vase, gave evidence of a painful fact. The pretty child, the bright, little musician, sitting there in the window, where the roses peeped in and almost laid their red cheeks against his, and over beyond which smiled the green fields of summer, the holy sky, the grain and the wheat, and the beautiful flowers blooming all unseen by him, the bonny wee fiddler, the dear gold-tressed child, was blind.

His parents loved him so dearly, that the fact had lost its pain. If his sight was gone he was blessed with the loveliest face that heaven had ever bestowed upon mortals. His skin was like that soft Parian marble one sees cut in figures of statues, vases and dear little angels ; his cheeks always had a rose flush in them ; his eyes, though no dawn ever touched them with its fingers of light, were large, luminous, and as perfect in shape as in color. Crowning all was his gift for music, his marvellous genius for making that little box of strings and screws tell one stories, as if it had a human tongue, almos^^

Little Bernardo's father was a peddler, and carried a rare pack. Sometimes the child felt over all the fine gold watches and chains, the 'soft satin-like texture of the garments, the pretty surfaces of the gay toys that smiling mothers bought for their little boys who could see. Bernardo the elder, had been married ten years, and had always been esteemed a very honest man and a good neighbor. He was, in truth, one of the kindest of husbands and fathers, providing well for his little household, and loving the little blind boy with a love that was almost worship.

" Will father be home to-night, mother ? " " No, boy, don't expect thy present till after the sun rises again ; " said his mother. " To-morrow he will come and we must have some of his favorite cakes baked for him."

All this while the mother had not seen that many more passers by than usual, looked up at the pretty cottage with sadly serious faces. The minister's wife went by, and turned her steps as if to enter, bxit changed her mind ; then the widow Green in her great calash and stout shoes walked slowly and thoughtfully to the gate, and went in an opposite direction.

" I wonder what brings so many of the neighbors past our door ? " spoke up the blind boy's mother at last. " The widow Green has gone by three times. Why don't she come in if she has news ? " and going to the door she called her twice — but there was no response.

It was getting to be supper-time, so the bread and milk were served on the shining little round table. Then the long gleaming curls of the little blind boy were carefully combed out, and as he pleaded hard in his childish way, his mother allowed him to sit up till the stars came out one by one, and shone like faint fires seen at a far distance.

The little cottage clock had struck eight — a full moon poured glorious light over all the village roads. Chatting in low tones, groups might be seen here and there with anxious faces, standing and gossiping in the sombre shadows of the branching elms. Ever and anon those who were nearest turned a curious gaze towards the pretty cottage of Bernardo Baptiste.

" She is sitting there by the window in the midst of the vines," said a gray haired old man, " and her little boy is on her lap. I saw them both as I came by."

" Poor thing ! " so said one and another with heavy sighs.

"Doesn't she know it?" asked a new comer, joining the group.

" How should she ? she takes no paper. No, it is plain that some one of us had better acquaint her with it ; the sooner the better. It will be a shock, poor soul ! Now who shall it be?"

''Not I — not I" — and they all shrank back as from some dreaded task.

" It's something that she should know," said widow Green, appearing in their midst, her green calash standing up stiff and straight. " I tried to get courage to go in three or four times, but it was enough to make one's heart ache to see her happy face, and hear the little one playing so beautifully upon the violin."

" Suppose you go ? " asked one ; " you could do it best."

Ah ! if it had only been scandal, she could have done it best, but this was terrible, awful news. The minister was gone from the village, the lawyer objected being the bearer of ill news, and the doctor was in attendance on a dyhig patient.

" I could ne'er have thought that Baptiste could do a deed like that ; " muttered an old man, shakhig his silvery locks — while the widow Green, after considering a few moments, had gone slowly towards the little cottage, whose flickering light through the rosevines, made it look so pretty.

Mrs. Baptiste was singing now. The golden locks of the blind boy floated over her bosom ; he was fast asleep, and in the soft light his face took on a serene and angelic beauty. Just as she was preparing to take him to his little room, the widow Green came in.

" A fine night, Mrs. Baptiste ; " she said, turning her face away, and moving, as if carelessly, the small candle farther back on the table that it might not betray her sorrowful looks. •

" It's a beautiful night ; " said the dame softly, a beautiful night. " I was telling poor little Berney just before he went to sleep, the shape of the moon, how it hung in the heavens, and sent it's soft light so that it fell on his golden hair. Poor boy ! " and she pressed her lips to the little head.