"Certainly--we can start a junior class for you, but what will you teach?"
He looked puzzled, then his roving eye fell on me. "All about ponies," he said, "and how good it is for boys and girls to live out-of-doors and love trees and animals."
His mother's sweet hoarse laugh rippled out over the veranda. "My son shall be professor of equitation."
"And for ponies shall we have rails from your fences?" asked the princess.
"No," said Mrs. Duff in rather a proud way. "If my son takes a real interest in the children of our immigrants, we shall have real ponies."
I whinnied excitedly and they all looked at me and smiled.
A dreamy expression came over the princess' face and I felt that she knew I understood.
Head of a pony school---- Well! that was something to look forward to, and in my mind's eye I saw ahead of me years of usefulness in working for my country under my master's direction, for how could citizenship be better taught to young foreigners than by the aid of a patriotic pony school?
Dallas' mind was aflame over the possibilities of this scheme. I felt that he was thinking of a life-work for others--a thing that appealed strongly to his generous heart, but he was suddenly brought from the clouds of imagination down to solid practical earth by an anxious remark from his mother.
"Marie, you are missing your tea. _Vous avez les yeux fatigués?_"
Young Dallas sprang up. "I know what that means, my Mother. The Princess has fatigued eyes. I know how to make tea. Come on, Prince Fetlar."
"So you have a prince here," said Madame de Valkonski, turning to me.
Didn't I step proudly forward, make my best bow, and do a Russian folk dance step that I had learned in New York.
The princess was delighted, and congratulated me most warmly, saying that it was a pleasure to meet so accomplished a pony.
I bowed again and again. It was a perfect delight to me to take something out of my little bag of tricks here, for I was never forced to do anything that I did not wish to. All the Devering family had a horror of the cruelties usually connected with the training of animals in tricks unnatural to them.
While I stood scraping and bowing, I heard Mrs. Duff telling her friend that there were not skilled maids in this family as there were in the Good American's, but every child was taught how to do every bit of household work accomplished on the place.