A Sham Princess by Eglanton Thorne

THE hour of the Princess's departure had come. Already she appeared to belong to another place than the dingy underground room. A lady dressed in nursing costume had arrived in a cab, bringing with her a large bag. With the deft, quick manner of one used to such tasks, she proceeded to wash and dress the patient, arraying her in fresh, neat garments produced from the bag.

When her toilette was completed, Prin, wearing a serge frock and jacket and a sailor hat, looked a very different being from the forlorn, sick girl who had been lying on the wretched bed. She was one who "paid for dress," as people say. Even Bert, accustomed to do homage to her, was surprised at the new grace and dignity with which the Princess seemed to be invested by her change of garb.

The nurse looked with satisfaction on the result of her efforts. She noted what a pretty, gracefully-formed girl her patient was. Then her eyes fell on the little brother, shrinking back against the wall, as if suddenly smitten with awe of his transformed sister, and she was conscious of a painful contrast. Bert was not handsome, and his thin, stunted form, clad in hopelessly ragged garments, looked its worst at this moment. He had not washed his hands since he made the fire, and his fingers had conveyed various black touches to his face, the features of which were twitching grotesquely, partly from nervousness, partly as the result of a heroic resolve not to cry.

His was a queer little face at all times, with its snub nose and the sensitive mouth, which gave itself readily to contortions; but it was redeemed from ugliness by a pair of deep blue eyes, keen in their glance, from the swift intelligence of a boy who gets his living on the London streets. As she looked into those eyes, the heart of the nurse went out to him.

"Is he your brother? " she asked.

Prin looked as if she would have liked to disown him; but she nodded in reply to the question.

The nurse moved nearer to the deplorable little figure, and spoke gently to him. "What will you do when your sister is gone, my little man? Will you be quite alone?"

Bert nodded.

The nurse looked troubled.

"I don't believe Mrs. Thornton understood that there was a brother," she said to herself. "Yet she has no home for boys, and she never sends them into the country."

Aloud she said, addressing Bert, "Would you not like to go to school with other little boys?"

"I do go to school," replied the boy. "I goes every day when we haven't measles. I'm in the fifth standard."

"Ah, that's well," said the nurse; "but would you not like to go to school altogether-to live in a school, I mean, with other boys, where they would be very kind to you and teach you a trade? I could write to Dr. Barnardo about you, if you liked, and I daresay he would take you into one of his homes."

Bert looked gravely at her. He had heard of Dr. Barnardo.

"And I should have to stay there always, and I should never see Prin," he said.

"Oh, you might see your sister sometimes; not very often, of course; but you would be allowed to see her occasionally."

Bert shook his head.

"And when I grew big enough he would send me over the sea, wouldn't he? " he asked.

"I daresay he would send you to Canada, and a grand thing it would be for you."

"Where's Canada? " asked Bert. "It's further off than Hampshire, ain't it?"