A Sham Princess by Eglanton Thorne

BERT hurried back to the Princess with his hands full of small packages. He proceeded to set out the nicest supper his limited means had enabled him to provide. Prin began to eat eagerly, but ere she had swallowed many mouthfuls, her appetite suddenly failed. She pushed her plate aside, and said she could eat no more.

"Why, Prin, you must be ill," Bert said, unable to understand how one who had eaten nothing all day could be so easily satisfied.

"No, not ill, only dead tired," she said faintly. "I think I'll go to bed."

"Won't you tell me first how it is you are in London? " Bert asked timidly. "Have you left Lady Millicent?"

A shiver ran through Prin as he spoke.

"Yes," she said faintly, "I've left her. They were unkind to me, and I ran away."

"Ran away! " repeated Bert, in amazement. "From Park Lane?"

"No, from the cottage-from Mrs. Hamblyn's, down in Hampshire."

"All that way! " exclaimed Bert. "What did they do to you to make you run off?"

The colour rose in Prin's face, and then died away as quickly. She answered, with considerable hesitation,-

"They said I was a thief-they said I had taken something of Lady Millicent's. They were coming to search my box, and I ran away."

"But why did you, Prin? " asked Bert, looking perplexed and troubled. "You should have stayed and let them search your box, then they would have known that you had not stolen it. But now they will most likely think that you've got whatever it was, and taken it away with you. It wasn't like you, Prin, to be so foolish."

"I suppose I did not think of that," she said, looking down.

"You didn't walk from Hampshire, surely? " he said, as his eyes fell on her boots.

She nodded.

"Most of the way," she said. "I didn't dare to take a train on their line, for fear they should telegraph and have me stopped at the station. I lay under a hedge last night, and as soon as it was light, I got up and walked on. Then a carrier's cart overtook me, and I got a lift. It was going to Weybridge, and there I took the train for London."

"You must be dreadfully tired," said Bert, looking compassionately at her; "you'd better get to bed at once."

"Oh," she cried, with a sudden wail of distress, "I wish I had not done it! " Then looking round her fearfully, she added, "You don't think they'll find me here, do you, Bert? Perhaps we had better go somewhere else."

"Why should you be afraid of their finding you, if you haven't got it? " asked Bert. "Of course you wouldn't be likely to steal. 'We're poor, but we're honest! ' as father used to say. What was it they thought you had taken?"

"Oh, do be quiet! You'll drive me mad with your questions! " cried Prin angrily. "I am not going to say another word, so there."