Very much it vexed Mistress Brace that Parson Kendall should keep so
sharp an eye on Maid Sally. And still more it troubled her that he
should speak again of her father and the kind of man he seemed.

But from that time Sally had better clothes to wear and felt no shame as
she went to and fro to evening lessons and to singing-school.

And so came the springtime, the sweet springtime, and there was beauty
everywhere. On the porch at Ingleside the honeysuckle and climbing roses
were bursting into radiant bloom. The birds began nesting in the
magnolias and the white-belled halesia-trees.

Sandpipers went scudding along down by the water, and the mountain holly
began putting on a new dress. The pink azalea, or swamp pink, violets,
buttercups, and all kinds of meadow beauties began peeping up all
around.

So smart a scholar had Sally shown herself, that Mistress Kent would
gladly have taken her into her classes, but the proud Virginia matrons
who sent their richly clothed children to the dame school would still
have thought Sally too poorly dressed a little maid to sit beside their
dainty little darlings.

Sally was beginning to add, subtract, divide, and multiply. And when the
school closed for the summer and Mistress Kent lent her a simple history
to read, she was wild with delight that she would still have a book near
by.

And much as Sally hated to give up her lessons for a few months, there
was a bird singing in her heart, singing a song of which poor Sally was
half ashamed and yet which made her very, very glad. For in June, rich,
flowery, song-bird June, _he_ was coming home, her Fairy Prince!

"And now I can far better understand all he reads," she said to her
Fairy. Then her glad voice fell. "But I can never, never come up to
him," she sighed; "there is yet a mountain of difference between us."

"You have begun to climb," said her Fairy.

"Ah, but there is proud Lady Rosamond Earlscourt, and Lady Irene
Westwood, and so many other high-born damsels of his own kind, all so
proud, so well-born."

"What know you of your own birth?" asked her Fairy, sharply. "How often
must I ask thee?"

"I only remember the Flats and Slipside Row," said Sally's forlorn
voice.

"Keep climbing," said her Fairy. "Does not something within you still
urge you to climb and climb?"

"Yes, yes," cried Sally, "and climb I will!"

And now that evenings of study had stopped for awhile, Sally went again
after supper to the belov