Produced by Tonya Allen, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.
A Princess she, though not by birth:
Her title's from above,
Her heritage the right of worth,
Her empire that of love.
[Illustration: 'You must have had a big haul father, to make such arent!' said Sara as she drew the fish net toward her.]
"Sairay! Sairay!"
The high, petulant voice rose shrilly through the steep, narrowstairway, and seemed to pierce the ears of the young girl who sat underthe low, sloping roof, nearly bent double over the book in her lap.
She involuntarily raised both hands to her ears, as if the noisedistressed her, then dropped them, straightened herself resolutely, andanswered in a pleasant contralto, whose rich notes betokened power andrepression,—
"Well, mother?"
"Your fayther's got to hev them nets mended right away, he says, an' myhan's is in the dough. Be you at them books agin?"
"Yes," said Sara; "but I'll come," rising with a sigh, and carefullyslipping a bit of paper between the leaves of her book, before she laidit on the rough board shelf at one side of the little garret room.
As she passed directly from the stairway into the kitchen, or living-room, her father turned from the hopeless-seeming tangle of soiled andtorn netting on the floor before him, and looked at her half wistfullyfrom under the glazed brim of his wide hat.
"Was you studyin', Sairay? Ye see, I've got into a bad sort o' messhere, an' we may git our orders fur the long fish any day."
"That's all right, father! No, baby, sister can't take you now," as thelittle fellow on the floor crept to her feet and set up a wail; but hersmile, and a replaced toy, silenced the cry, and brought back comfortand complaisance to the puckered little face.
Sara then stepped to her father's side, and drew the large soiled fish-net towards her, looking with dismay on the broken meshes; but her voicewas still bright, as she said,—
"You must have had