don't do it!"

The Princess was looking at the world. She was gazing at it so
dazed-like she seemed to be surprised at what she saw. She acted as if
she'd never really seen it before. She looked and she looked. She
even turned her horse a full circle to see all of it, and she went
around slowly. I stepped from one foot to the other and sweat; but I
kept quiet and let her look. At last when she came around, she glanced
down at me, and she was all melted, and lovely as any one you ever saw,
exactly like Shelley at Christmas, and she said: "I don't think I ever
saw the world before. I don't know that I'm so crazy about a city
myself, and I perfectly hate lawyers. Come to thing of it, a lawyer
helped work ruin in our family, and I never have believed, I never will
believe----"

She stopped talking and began looking again. I gave her all the time
she needed. I was just straining to be wise, for mother says it takes
the very wisest person there is to know when to talk, and when to keep
still. As I figured it, now was the time not to say another word until
she made up her mind about what I had told her already. If Pryors
didn't know what we thought of them by that time, it wasn't mother's
fault or mine. As she studied things over she kept on looking. What
she saw seemed to be doing her a world of good. Her face showed it
every second plainer and plainer. Pretty soon it began to look like
she was going to come through as Amos Hurd did when he was redeemed.
Then, before my very eyes, it happened! I don't know how I ever held
on to the pie or kept from shouting, "Praise the Lord!" as father does
at the Meeting House when he is happiest. Then she leaned toward me
all wavery, and shining eyed, and bloomful, and said: "Did you ever
hurt Laddie's feelings, and make him angry and sad?"

"I'm sure I never did," I answered.

"But suppose you had! What would you do?"

"Do? Why, I'd go to him on the run, and I'd tell him I never intended
to hurt his feelings, and how sorry I was, and I'd give him the very
best kiss I could."

The Princess stroked Maud's neck a long time and thought while she
studied our farm, theirs beyond it, and at the last, the far field
where Laddie was plowing. She thought, and thought, and afraid to
cheep, I stood gripping the shingle and waited. Finally she said:
"The last time Laddie was at our house, I said to him those things he
repeated to you. He went away at once, hurt and dis