A Sham Princess by Eglanton Thorne

BERT was not likely to die. His worst injury was a broken rib, and that having been skilfully set, he was likely to do well. He did not suffer acute pain; yet the boy was miserable enough as he lay on his little bed in the hospital ward. He was enduring pangs which he could not describe, and which the best of nurses could not have relieved.

Shakespeare pronounced it "sharper than a serpent's tooth" to have a thankless child, and the sting of the ingratitude that sins against love is under all circumstances hard to bear. Bert could not have put his feelings into words, but his heart ached at the remembrance of how Prin had turned from him. It seemed cruel of her, for she must have known how he had suffered from loneliness and heartache since she went away.

"I could never have treated her so," Bert said to himself; "no, not if I had become the greatest swell that ever was."

It appeared that the Princess had risen in the world. How came she to be driving in that grand carriage with those smartly-dressed children? Had she left Hampshire for good?

"Oh, she might have written and told me," groaned Bert; "and to-day I meant to go down there to see her!"

The boy grew restless and feverish under the strain of his mental trouble. Mr. Corney, who had been greatly distressed to see him borne off to the hospital, and quite at a loss to understand how the accident had happened, had quickly followed him thither, and he came again and again to see him. But he, kind though he was, could not enter into Bert's state of mind. He was convinced that the boy was under a delusion regarding his sister. It was not really Prin, but some one very like her whom he had seen. Bert shook his head, and pressed his lips firmly together at the suggestion.

"It was Prin, and she saw me," he said; and it was impossible to persuade him otherwise.

In vain, Mr. Corney tried to argue with him.

"Don't you remember that I saw some one very like my sister? " he asked. "And yet it was not my sister."

"It may have been," said Bert. "You have not seen her for a long time; she may have altered."

"Oh no; it is impossible that that could have been my sister. Priscilla was a most respectable woman, and that poor woman looked like a person who drank. Besides, you said you knew her. You called her Mrs. Kay."

"Oh yes, I forgot. Of course it was Mrs. Kay," said Bert. But he was no less convinced that he had seen Prin.

"People do change, though," he remarked, somewhat irrelevantly. "I never could have believed that Prin would have looked on me and turned away like that."

"Ay," said old Corney, "it was not like a sister, and that's what makes me think you must be mistaken. Well, there's one Friend will never treat you like that, Bert," and he began to sing softly his favourite hymn,-

"I've found a Friend, oh, such a Friend!"

"Wouldn't He be ashamed of a ragged little chap like me? " asked Bert wistfully.

The old sailor's face brightened with a beaming smile as he shook his head and said,-

"Not He. Neither our rags nor our sins can separate us from the love of Christ. He is not ashamed to call us His brothers."

The thought dropped like balm on Bert's wounded spirit. Long after Mr. Corney had gone, the refrain of his hymn,-

"I've found a Friend, oh, such a Friend!"