Caroline, and turned away.

"You sing better," Caroline began sullenly; but the lady pointed to
Miss Honey.

"No, you tell me," she insisted remorselessly.

Miss Honey faced her.

"You--you sing better than my m-mother," she gulped, "but I _love_
her better, and she's nicer than you, and I don't love you at
_all_!"

She buried her face in the red velvet throne, and sobbed aloud with
excitement and fatigue. Caroline ran to her: how could she have
loved that cruel woman? She cast an ugly look at the Princess as she
went to comfort Miss Honey, but the Princess was at the throne
before her.

"Oh, I am abominable," she cried. "I am too horrid to live! It
wasn't kind of me, _cherie_, and I love you for standing up for
your mother. There's no one to do as much for me, when _I'm_ down
and out--no one!" Sorrow swept over her flexible face like a veil,
and seizing Miss Honey in her strong nervous arms she wept on her
shoulder.

Caroline, worn with the strain of the day, wept, too, and even the
General, abandoned in the great chair, burst into a tiny warning
wail.

Quick as thought the Princess was upon him, and had raised him
against her cheek.

"Hush, hush, don't cry--don't cry, little thing," she whispered, and
sank into one of the high carved chairs with him.

"No, no, I'll hold him," she protested, as Delia entered, her arms
out. "I'm going to sing to him. May I? He's sleepy."

Delia nodded indulgently. "For half an hour," she said, as one
allowing a great privilege, "and then we must go. The children are
tired."

"What do you sing to him?" the Princess questioned humbly.

"I generally sing 'Flow Gently, Sweet Afton,'" the nurse answered.
"Do you know it?"

"I think so," and the Princess began a sort of glorified humming,
like a great drowsy bee, all resonant and tremulous.

"Tell me the words," she said, and Delia recited them, as a mother
would, to humor a petted child.

The Princess lifted her voice and pressing the General to her, began
the song,

"Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes,
Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise."

Soft the great voice was, soft and widely flowing; to Caroline, who
had retreated to the further end of the music-room, so that Delia
should not see her tears, it seemed as if Delia herself, a wonderful
new Delia, were singing her, a baby again, to sleep. She felt
soothed, cradled, protected by that lapping sea of melody that
drifted her of