E-text prepared by Charlene Taylor, Joel Erickson, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) A PRINCESS IN CALICO by EDITH FERGUSON BLACK Philadelphia The Union Press 1122 Chestnut Street 1904 CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. SLEEPY HOLLOW 7 II. A TEN-DOLLAR BILL 20 III. FAIRYLAND 30 IV. A NEW WORLD 42 V. PAULINE'S BIRTHRIGHT 54 VI. GIVING ONESELF 68 VII. A GREAT SURRENDER 78 VIII. IDEALISING THE REAL 90 IX. A LOST LETTER 103 X. THE ANGEL OF PATIENCE 117 XI. PURE GOLD 129 _Chapter I_ SLEEPY HOLLOW She stood at her bedroom window before going downstairs to take up the burden of a new day. She was just seventeen, but they did not keep any account of anniversaries at Hickory Farm. The sun had given her a loving glance as he lifted his bright old face above the horizon, but her father was too busy and careworn to remember, and, since her mother had gone away, there was no one else. She had read of the birthdays of other girls, full of strange, sweet surprises, and tender thoughts--but those were girls with mothers. A smile like a stray beam of sunshine drifted over her troubled young face, at the thought of the second Mrs Harding stopping for one instant in her round of ponderous toil to note the fact that one of her family had reached another milestone in life's journey. Certainly not on washing day, when every energy was absorbed in the elimination of impurity from her household linen, and life looked grotesque and hazy through clouds of soapy steam. She heard her father now putting on the heavy pots of water, and then watched him cross the chip-yard to the barn. How bent and old he looked. Did he ever repent of his step? she wondered. Life could not be much to him any more than it was to her, and he had known her mother! Oh! why could he not have waited? She would soon have been old enough to keep house for him.