Читать книгу Prince Dusty. A Story of the Oil Regions онлайн

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As he spoke, poor, terrified little Cynthia came timidly out from the bushes where she had been hiding, and crying with fright, for the last three minutes.

Then the beautiful lady took them both into her carriage, and ordered the coachman to drive on, while she soothed and comforted the children, and wiped Arthur’s dusty face with her own embroidered handkerchief.

She looked curiously at him when he told her that his name was Arthur Dale Dustin, that his dearest mamma and papa were dead, and that he used to live in New York, but that now he lived with Cynthia’s father and mother, who were his Uncle John and Aunt Nancy. She asked him several questions about himself; but always seemed to forget his name and only called him “Prince Dusty.”

When they reached the Dustin house she kissed both the children good-bye, and gave Arthur a beautiful copy of Hans Christian Andersen’s “Fairy Tales,” that she had in the carriage with her. On the fly-leaf she wrote, with a tiny gold pencil that hung from her watch-chain: “To Prince Dusty from his Fairy Godmother.” Then she said she must hurry on, and drove away, leaving the children standing by the roadside and staring after the carriage so long as the faintest cloud of dust from its wheels was visible.