The Little Colonels Hero | Page 9

want to
see?"
"Oh, thousands of things!" exclaimed Lloyd. "There are the châteaux
where kings and queens have lived, and the places that are in the old
songs, like Bonnie Doon, and London Bridge, and Twickenham Ferry.
I want to see Denmark, because Hans Christian Andersen lived there,
and wrote his fairy tales, and London, because Dickens and Little Nell
lived there. But I think I shall enjoy Switzerland most. We expect to
stay there a long time. It is such a brave little country. Papa has told me
a great deal about its heroes. He is going to take me to see the Lion of
Lucerne, and to Altdorf, under the lime-tree, where William Tell shot
the apple. I love that story."
"Well, aren't you _queer!_" exclaimed Fidelia, opening her eyes wide
and looking at Lloyd as if she were some sort of a freak. It was her tone
and look that were offensive, more than her words. Lloyd was furious.
"No, I am not queah, Miss Sattawhite!" she exclaimed, moving away
much ruffled. As she flounced toward the cabin, her eyes very bright
and her cheeks very red, she looked back with an indignant glance. "I
wish now that I'd told her why I'm sorry for Howl and Henny. I'd be
sorry for anybody that had such a rude sistah!"
But there were other children on the vessel whose acquaintance Lloyd
made before the week was over. She played checkers and quoits with
the boys, and paper dolls with the girls, and one sunny morning she
was invited to join the group under the stairs, where she heard the story
of the white prince from beginning to end, and found out why he
vanished.
Those were happy days on the big steamer, despite the fact that Howl
and Henny haunted her like two hungry little shadows. Sometimes the

captain himself came down and walked with her. The Shermans sat at
his table, and he had grown quite fond of the little Kentucky girl with
her soft Southern accent. As they paced the deck hand in hand, he told
her marvellous tales of the sea, till she grew to love the ship and the
heaving water world around them, and wished that they might sail on
and on, and never come to land until the end of the summer.
CHAPTER III.
LLOYD MEETS HERO
It was July when they reached Switzerland. After three weeks of
constant travel, it seemed good to leave boats and railroads for awhile,
and stop to rest in the clean old town of Geneva. The windows of the
big hotel dining-room looked out on the lake, and the Little Colonel,
sitting at breakfast the morning after their arrival, could scarcely eat for
watching the scene outside.
Gay little pleasure boats flashed back and forth on the sparkling water.
The quay and bridge were thronged with people. From open windows
down the street came the tinkle of pianos, and out on the pier, where a
party of tourists were crowding on to one of the excursion steamers, a
band was playing its merriest holiday music.
Far away in the distance she could see the shining snow crown of Mont
Blanc, and it gave her an odd feeling, as if she were living in a
geography lesson, to know that she was bounded on one side by the
famous Alpine mountain, and on the other by the River Rhône, whose
source she had often traced on the map. The sunshine, the music, and
the gay crowds made it seem to Lloyd as if the whole world were out
for a holiday, and she ate her melon and listened to the plans for the
day with the sensation that something very delightful was about to
happen.
"We'll go shopping this morning," said Mrs. Sherman. "I want Lloyd to
see some of those wonderful music boxes they make here; the dancing
bears, and the musical hand-mirrors; the chairs that play when you sit
down in them, and the beer-mugs that begin a tune when you lift them

up."
Lloyd's face dimpled with pleasure, and she began to ask eager
questions. "Couldn't we take one to Mom Beck, mothah? A
lookin'-glass that would play 'Kingdom Comin', when she picked it up?
It would surprise her so she would think it was bewitched, and she'd
shriek the way she does when a cattapillah gets on her."
Lloyd laughed so heartily at the recollection, that an old gentleman
sitting at an opposite table smiled in sympathy. He had been watching
the child ever since she came into the dining-room, interested in every
look and gesture. He was a dignified old French soldier, tall and
broad-shouldered, with gray hair and a fierce-looking gray moustache
drooping heavily over his mouth. But the eyes under his shaggy