"I believe that!" I answered, and stared back at him without blinking.
"I guess I wouldn't want the responsibility."

But I had an idea that he meant what he said about the many women, and
that Miss Patty knew it as well as I did. She flushed a little, and
they went very soon after that. I stood and watched them until they
disappeared in the snow, and I felt lonelier than ever, and sad,
although certainly he was better than I had expected to find him. He was
a man, and not a little cub with a body hardly big enough to carry his
forefathers' weaknesses. But he had a cold eye and a warm mouth,
and that sort of man is generally a social success and a matrimonial
failure.

It wasn't until toward night that I remembered I'd been talking to a
real prince and I hadn't once said "your Highness" or "your Excellency"
or whatever I should have said. I had said "You!"

I had hardly closed the door after them when it opened again and Mr.
Pierce came in. He shut the door and, going over to one of the tables,
put a package down on it.

"Here's the stuff you wanted for the spring, Minnie," he announced. "I
suppose I can't do anything more than register a protest against it?"

"You needn't bother doing that," I answered, "unless it makes you feel
better. Your authority ends at that door. Inside the spring-house I'm in
control."

(It's hard to believe, with things as they are, that I once really
believed that. But I did. It was three full days later that I learned