STORIES ***


E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan, and the Project
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LITTLE SAINT ELIZABETH

And Other Stories

BY FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT

1888







CONTENTS




Little Saint Elizabeth

The Story of Prince Fairyfoot

The Proud Little Grain of Wheat

Behind the White Brick




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FROM DRAWINGS BY REGINALD B. BIRCH

"There she is," they would cry.

It was Aunt Clotilde, who had sunk forward while kneeling at prayer

The villagers did not stand in awe of her

"Uncle Bertrand," said the child, clasping her hands

"Why is it that you cry?" she asked gently

Her strength deserted her--she fell upon her knees in the snow

"Why," exclaimed Fairyfoot, "I'm surprised"

"What's the matter with the swine?" he asked

Almost immediately they found themselves in a beautiful little dell

Fairyfoot loved her in a moment, and he knelt on one knee

"There's the cake," he said

"Eh! Eh!" he said. "What! What! Who's this Tootsicums?"






LITTLE SAINT ELIZABETH


She had not been brought up in America at all. She had been born in
France, in a beautiful _chateau_, and she had been born heiress to a
great fortune, but, nevertheless, just now she felt as if she was very
poor, indeed. And yet her home was in one of the most splendid houses in
New York. She had a lovely suite of apartments of her own, though she was
only eleven years old. She had had her own carriage and a saddle horse, a
train of masters, and governesses, and servants, and was regarded by all
the children of the neighborhood as a sort of grand and mysterious little
princess, whose incomings and outgoings were to be watched with the
greatest interest.

"There she is," they would cry, flying to their windows to look at her.
"She is going out in her carriage." "She is dressed all in black velvet
and splendid fur." "That is her own, own, carriage." "She has millions of
money; and she can have anything she wants--Jane says so!" "She is very
pretty, too; but she is so pale and has such big, sorrowful, black eyes.
I should not be sorrowful if I were in her place; but Jane says the
servants say she is always quiet and looks sad." "Her maid says she lived
with her aunt, and her aunt made her too religious."

She rarely lifted her large dark eyes to look at them with any curiosity.
She was not accustomed to the society of children. She had never had a
child companion in her life, and these little Americans, who were so very
rosy and gay, and who went out to walk or drive with groups of brothers
and sisters, and even ran in the street, laughing and playing and
squabbling healthily--these children amazed her.

Poor little Saint Elizabeth! She had not lived a very natural or healthy
life herself, and she knew absolutely nothing of real childish pleasures.
You see, it had occurred in this way: When she was a baby of two years
her young father and mother died, within a week of each other, of a
terrible fever, and the only near relatives the little one had were her
Aunt Clotilde and Uncle Bertrand. Her Aunt Clotilde lived in
Normandy--her Uncle Bertrand in New York. As these two were her only
guardians, and as Bertrand de Rochemont was a gay bachelor, fond of
pleasure and knowing nothing of babies, it was natural that he should be
very willing that his elder sister should undertake the rearing and
education of the child.

"Only," he wrote to Mademoiselle de Rochemont, "don't end by training her
for an abbess, my dear Clotilde."

[Illustration: "THERE SHE IS," THEY WOULD CRY.]

There was a very great difference between these two people--the distance
between the gray stone _chateau_ in Normandy and the brown stone mansion
in New York was not nearly so great as the distance and difference
between the two lives. And yet it was said that in her first youth
Mademoiselle de Rochemont had been as gay and fond of pleasure as either
of her brothers. And then, when her life was at its brightest and
gayest--when she was a beautiful and brilliant young woman--she had had a
great and bitter sorrow, which had changed her for ever. From that time
she had never left the house in which she had been born, and had lived
the life of a nun in everything but being enclosed in convent walls. At
first she had had her parents to take care of, but when they died she had
been left entirely alone in the great _chateau_, and devoted herself to
prayer and works of charity among the villagers and country people.

"Ah! she is good--she is a saint Mademoiselle," the poor people always
said when speaking of her; but they also always looked a little
awe-stricken when she appeared, and never were sorry when she left them.

She was a tall woman, with a pale, rigid, handsome face, which never
smiled. She did nothing but good deeds, but however grateful her
pensioners might be, nobody would ever have dared to dream of loving her.
She was just and cold and severe. She wore always a straight black serge
gown, broad bands of white linen, and a rosary and crucifix at her waist.
She read nothing but religious works and legends of the saints and
martyrs, and adjoining her private apartments was a little stone chapel,
where the servants said she used to kneel on the cold floor before the
altar and pray for hours in the middle of the night.

The little _cure_ of the village, who was plump and comfortable, and who
had the kindest heart and the most cheerful soul in the world, used to
remonstrate with her, always in a roundabout way, however, never quite as
if he were referring directly to herself.

"One must not let one's self become the stone image of goodness," he said
once. "Since one is really of flesh and blood, and lives among flesh and
blood, that is not best. No, no; it is not best."

But Mademoiselle de Rochemont never seemed exactly of flesh and
blood--she was more like a marble female saint who had descended from her
pedestal to walk upon the earth.

And she did not change, even when the baby Elizabeth was brought to her.
She attended strictly to the child's comfort and prayed many prayers for
her innocent soul, but it can be scarcely said that her manner was any
softer or that she smiled more. At first Elizabeth used to scream at the
sight of the black, nun-like dress and the rigid, handsome face, but in
course of time she became accustomed to them, and, through living in an
atmosphere so silent and without brightness, a few months changed her
from a laughing, romping baby into a pale, quiet child, who rarely made
any childish noise at all.

In this quiet way she became fond of her aunt. She saw little of anyone
but the servants, who were all trained to quietness also. As soon as she
was old enough her aunt began her religious training. Before she could
speak plainly she heard legends of saints and stories of martyrs. She was
taken into the little chapel and taught to pray there. She believed in
miracles, and would not have been surprised at any moment if she had met
the Child Jesus or the Virgin in the beautiful rambling gardens which
surrounded the _chateau_. She was a sensitive, imaginative child, and the
sacred romances she heard filled all her mind and made up her little
life. She wished to be a saint herself, and spent hours in wandering in
the terraced rose gardens wondering if such a thing was possible in
modern days, and what she must do to obtain such holy victory. Her chief
sorrow was that she knew herself to be delicate and very timid--so timid
that she often suffered when people did not suspect it--and she was
afraid that she was not brave enough to be a martyr. Once, poor little
one! when she was alone in her room, she held her hand over a burning wax
candle, but the pain was so terrible that she could not keep it there.
Indeed, she fell back white and faint, and sank upon her chair,
breathless and in tears, because she felt sure that she could not chant
holy songs if she were being burned at the stake. She had been vowed to
the Virgin in her babyhood, and was always dressed in white and blue, but
her little dress was a small conventual robe, straight and narrow cut, of
white woollen stuff, and banded plainly with blue at the waist. She did
not look like other children, but she was very sweet and gentle, and her
pure little pale face and large, dark eyes had a lovely dreamy look. When
she was old enough to visit the poor with her Aunt Clotilde--and she was
hardly seven years old when it was considered proper that she should
begin--the villagers did not stand in awe of her. They began to adore
her, almost to worship her, as if she had, indeed, been a sacred child.
The little ones delighted to look at her, to draw near her sometimes and
touch her soft white and blue robe. And, when they did so, she always
returned their looks with such a tender, sympathetic smile, and spoke to
them in so gentle a voice, that they were in ecstasies. They used to
talk her over, tell stories about her when they were playing together
afterwards.

"The little Mademoiselle," they said, "she is a child saint. I have heard
them say so. Sometimes there is a little light round her head. One day
her little white robe will begin to shine too, and her long sleeves will
be wings, and she will spread them and ascend through the blue sky to
Paradise. You will see if it is not so."

So, in this secluded world in the gray old _chateau