"No, no--not a prince at all--only a very spoiled little boy, I am afraid," said the mother, with something between a sob and a laugh. "A little boy who badly wants his father and mother's care and training. But we had to leave him with my sisters when we were sent out to India in haste two years ago; and we have been there ever since. He was brought out to meet us as we came home; he came in my husband's yacht, which met us at Malta, and we were to come home to England in her. The child had hardly more than learned to know us well before that fearful night, when we thought we must go to the bottom before we reached port. Oh, how can I tell you the agony we suffered when we heard that the mast to which the child had been lashed for protection had been snapped clean off, and had gone overboard, and we running before the gale as our only chance, and expecting almost moment by moment to be sucked beneath the cruel waves! It only seemed then as though he had been the first. There was water below, and above the waves swept the deck every moment. I was lashed to another mast; but I was almost insensible from cold and exposure. I think I saw the light of the lighthouse above us as we passed half a mile off from it. I had just heard then that the child had gone, and nothing seemed to matter then, whether we lived or died. And then somehow we got round the headland, in the wake of a big steamer also in distress, and they helped us, though in need of help themselves, and at last we both weathered the storm together. But, oh! what days of misery those were when we thought we had lost for ever in this world the little son we had just received back after those long years of absence!" Tears of sympathy were in Eileen's eyes; but she began to understand many things that had puzzled her before. "Oh, my lady, I am so thankful to hear you speak so. I was grieved that the little boy spoke so little of you, and seemed to care so little whether his own father and mother came for him or not. Glad was I for sure that he was happy with us; but it didn't seem natural-like for him never to pine a bit for his mother. It made me afraid (you'll forgive me speaking so plain) that his parents had not cared for him as a child should be cared for, and that went to my heart; but now----"