way, invariably ran back again and
apologised, fawning upon him and pushing their broad, ugly, kindly
muzzles into his hands; and to that of _Monsieur Pouf_, the gray
Persian cat, who, far from going too quickly, displayed such majestic
deliberation of movement and admirable dignity of waving fluffed tail,
that it required much patient coaxing on Dickie's part ever to make him
leave his cushion by the fire and go at all.

But, with the above-mentioned exception, the little boy's self-content
suffered but slight disturbance. He took himself very much for granted.
He was very curious of outside things, very much amused. Moreover, he
was king of a far from contemptible kingdom; and in the blessed
ignorance of childhood--that finds pride and honour in things which a
wider and sadder knowledge often proves far from glad or glorious--it
appeared to him not unnatural that a king should differ, even to the
point of some slightly impeding disabilities, from the rank and file of
his obedient and devoted subjects. For Dickie, happily for him, was as
yet given over to that wholly pleasant vanity, the aristocratic idea.
The rough justice of democracy, and the harsh breaking of all purely
personal and individualistic dreams that comes along with it, for him,
was not just yet.

And Richard's continued and undismayed acquiescence in his physical
misfortune was fostered, indirectly, by the captivating poetry of myth
and legend with which his mind was fed. He had an insatiable appetite
for stories, and Mademoiselle de Mirancourt was an untiring
_raconteuse_. On Sunday afternoons upon the terrace, when the park lay
bathed in drowsy sunshine and sapphire shadows haunted the under edge
of the great woods, the pretty old lady--her eyes shining with gentle
laughter, for Marie de Mirancourt's faith had reached the very perfect
stage in which the soul dares play, even as lovers play, with that it
holds most sacred--would tell Dickie--the fairy tales of her Church.
Would tell him of blessed St. Francis and of Poverty, his sweet, sad
bride; of his sermon to the birds dwelling in the oak groves along
Tiber valley; of the mystic stigmata, marking as with nail prints his
hands and feet, and of that indomitable love towards all creatures,
which found alike in the sun in heaven and the heavy-laden ass,
brothers and friends. Or she would tell him of that man of mighty
strength and stature, St. Christopher, who, in the stormy
darkness,--yielding to it