Chapter II: A Princess

Cousin Salome would see her now, and so Bryda went to the invalid's room.

"You look very miserable, darling," said the soft voice compassionately, as Bryda, after kissing her cousin, stood looking dolefully out of the window.

"I am very miserable, Cousin Salome," she answered, feeling that she had good cause for misery.

"Very miserable, when you can run about and be out of doors with the sunshine and the birds and the flowers! There must be something very bad the matter. Come and tell me all about it."

Bryda knelt by the couch, a little ashamed of herself. Cousin Salome might well be miserable, so ill that she could never again hope to walk in the sunny, scented garden.

"It's easy for you to be good, I suppose, cousin," she said. "You lie here all day, and don't find any mischief to get into."

The last words were said as if mischief was a sort of thing that came to you, and asked you to get into it--in the same way as roast pigs run about in the fairy country, holding out a knife and fork and crying, "Eat me, do! please!"

"So mischief is the cause of the great misery!" said Cousin Salome, smiling, and drawing the little girl nearer to her. "Tell me what was the last piece of mischief."

Bryda told all about her adventure with Paddy, and ended:

"Oh, Cousin Salome, I've nothing to do!"

"That's the beginning of all mischief, I am afraid, darling. Do bees and birds get into mischief? Not they, they are too busy."

"Well, I would make honey or a nest if I knew how," said Bryda, laughing. "If I could paint a picture like this, I should be happy."

Cousin Salome had been painting. She could only do a little at a time and that with difficulty; but she had drawn a very beautiful figure of a young girl in a rich, old-fashioned dress, sitting by an open window, through which could be seen a great plain and a large town some way off. The girl's face was full of wonder, and rather sad, and she looked away at the sunset sky, as if she were thinking of something very puzzling. Bryda took up the picture and looked at it.

"That is Princess Isabel of Montenaro; she is doing what you are doing now, Bryda."

"What I am doing, cousin?"

"Yes; wondering what she ought to do. Do you see the town beyond the green park? That was her father's capital, and a dreadful sickness broke out there, so that people died by hundreds. But the king was a hard-hearted man, and spent the days in feasting and hunting, and paid no heed to the people's sufferings."

"Oh, do tell me the story!" cried Bryda eagerly.

Cousin Salome smiled.

"The story, as I have it, is in verse. You would not like that, Bryda?"

"Oh, yes, yes! Please read it."

"Can't you read it yourself?" asked Salome slyly.

"Oh, _no!_" with great energy. "Reading is quite different from being read to. Why, the story _tastes_ quite ten times nicer when you listen to it!"

So Cousin Salome opened a book that lay near, and began to read in her gentle, tired voice, the story of the little picture she had painted of the Princess Isabel.

The story was all in verse, and it was a little hard for Bryda to understand; but it told how the princess could not bear to know that others were suffering without trying to help them. So, while the sounds of her father's noisy feast came up into her quiet room, Princess Isabel rose up, took off her fine dress and her jewels, and dressed herself very simply. Then, followed only by two of her ladies, who were unselfish like herself, Isabel went down on foot to the plague-stricken city, and there remained, nursing the sick and caring for the poor, till the dreadful plague was at last gone. Meantime the king thought he could forget all about it. and spent his time in hunting and feasting; but the pestilence came even into his palace, and he and many of his gay court died.

Isabel was not touched by it; and when the sad time was over she remained in the city working for the poor people, and helping them till she died, never thinking of her own comfort. So the people, after she was dead, loved to call her Saint Isabel.

"Thank you," said Bryda, and drew a long breath when the story was finished. She had perhaps not understood it all, but one thing was clear.

"The princess was never idle, Cousin Salome. So I expect she never got into mischief. But I don't think it was nice for her to have no playtime."

"She could wait for her playtime, dear," answered Cousin Salome gently. "She would enjoy it all the more, perhaps, because she had worked so hard."

The sick lady turned a little and looked out at the quiet evening. Noisy rooks were flying home to roost, meek cows slowly walking off to be milked; on a large tree a peacock and his two wives were settling themselves for sleep.

Bryda looked out of the window, too.

"I think the stars are afraid of the great big sun, Cousin Salome. Do you see the way they first poke out their heads, and look to see if he is really gone, and then come right out to do their little shining?"

Cousin Salome laughed, and the deep lines that sickness had written seemed to grow fainter, and make her younger and rounder.

"Their little worktime is just beginning. They look as if they came out smiling, with clean bright faces, ready to do as they are bidden."

"Poor Cousin Salome!" said Bryda, stroking the thin white hand that lay weak and idle on the soft coverings. "You can't work or play either. You must be very unhappy. I should be."

"When I was your age, darling, I built myself grand castles in the air. Oh, how many nice things I meant to do when I grew up! But I was given a different sort of work, a much harder one to me, dear child--the work of patiently doing nothing."

Bryda looked sorely puzzled.

"Never mind," went on Cousin Salome. "You are not set to that work, Bryda, nor to a great work like Princess Isabel's. Just now you will find there are plenty of little works ready for you to do--little crumbs of which to make a great loaf."

"Picking up grannie's stitches when she drops them? asked Bryda. Grandmother's knitting was often in that sort of state.

"That may be one thing. They are plenty more. Shall I tell you an old German story, about the use of little things?

"Once upon a time some people lived in a plain, at the edge of which there was the sea. They lived here long and happily; but one sad day the sea began to rise and overflow the plain, creeping every day a little nearer the prosperous village.

"So the people were sorely frightened, and tried to build earthworks; but the sea washed away at night what they had done in the day.

"These were days very long ago, when, according to the old stories, God would answer men from heaven when they called to Him.

"So the people prayed and asked God to send them His great angels, that they might make hills for them to protect their homes and fields from the terrible waters.

"But God answered, 'My angels have already their work; they cannot help you in this. But to-morrow, at sunrise, I will send to you an army of My laborers; they shall make you sand-hills.'

"So the villagers were very glad, and next morning they rose early, before the sun, wondering what sort of laborers these would be.

"'Perhaps the happy spirits of our fathers will come back to help us; perhaps men from the south country--a kind and friendly people--will be sent to work for us. Perhaps----'

"But all their wonder was in vain, and it was changed to surprise and dismay when, as the sun rose, they saw coming swiftly from the east an army of--what do you think, Bryda?"

"Lions and tigers?" asked Bryda, with wide-open eyes. "Elephants? People? Giants?"

"No, indeed; neither great, strong animals, nor clever men, but hundreds and hundreds and thousands of ants!"

"Ants, cousin? What use would they be?"

"You shall hear. Each ant carried one grain, or what seemed to be one grain, of sand. On and on they came, and the ground was quite black with their hosts. The people looked, and gradually their murmurs grew to one great roar of discontent. But God's little laborers paid no attention. They had their Master's will to do, and so long as that was done they cared for neither the praise nor the blame of His other creatures. So all day long they worked, each little ant carrying his little load; and when the sun set there was a great line of sandhills, so high that no waves could wash over them, so thick that no storm could break them down, between the happy villagers and the sea."

"Then the people stopped grumbling, I suppose."

"We will hope so. And perhaps they learned that God can use the smallest things to do His work with. The little ants were as useful in their way as the noble, unselfish Princess Isabel. Now, dear, I am getting very tired; will you sit quietly and look at pictures, or run away and see the grannies?"

Bryda chose the pictures, and sat as still as a mouse in the window, looking first at a picture, and then out of the window, and saying to herself that she, too, would try to be of some use.