princess,” laughed Diana. “She’s an old maid . . . she’s forty-five and quite gray, I’ve heard.”
“Oh, that’s only part of the spell,” asserted Anne confidently. “At heart she’s young and beautiful still . . . and if we only knew how to unloose the spell she would step forth radiant and fair again. But we don’t know how . . . it’s always and only the prince who knows that . . . and Miss Lavendar’s prince hasn’t come yet. Perhaps some fatal mischance has befallen him . . . though that’s against the law of all fairy tales.”
“I’m afraid he came long ago and went away again,” said Diana. “They say she used to be engaged to Stephan Irving . . . Paul’s father . . . when they were young. But they quarreled and parted.”
“Hush,” warned Anne. “The door is open.”
The girls paused in the porch under the tendrils of ivy and knocked at the open door. There was a patter of steps inside and a rather odd little personage presented herself . . . a girl of about fourteen, with a freckled face, a snub nose, a mouth so wide that it did really seem as if it stretched “from ear to ear,” and two long braids of fair hair tied with two enormous bows of blue ribbon.
“Is Miss Lewis at home?” asked Diana.
“Yes, ma’am. Come in, ma’am . . . this way, ma’am . . . and sit down, ma’am. I’ll tell Miss Lavendar you’re here, ma’am. She’s upstairs, ma’am.”
