The Honourable John Ruffin looked after them and laughed quietly but joyfully. Then he said:

"I congratulate you, Pollyooly—an excellent piece of work very neatly done. The haughty foreigner will trouble you no more."

Mrs. Gibson came forward and added her congratulations to his. The children gazed at Pollyooly with deep respect. Only the nurses and the mothers held aloof; an earthquake shock would hardly have astonished and confused them more than had this smacking of royalty. Had any one but the little cousin of the Honourable John Ruffin smacked, they would have been unable to refrain from an outburst of open disapproval.

To judge from the royal progress next morning, Pollyooly had indeed done her work. The Baron von Habelschwert still perfumed the air as he walked; but it was no longer obviously the air of a conquered country. His moustache was less fierce, his stride less proprietary. Indeed he might easily have been mistaken, by those to whom his name and dignities were unknown, for the pear-shaped but inoffensive keeper of a delicatessen shop. Prince Adalbert of Lippe-Schweidnitz was also changed. He no longer roamed afield; he kept within six feet of his protective equerry. He slouched less; and he had ceased to scowl arrogantly on the children who no longer fled at his approach. He regarded little English girls with a respectful, not to say timid, eye, and edged closer to the baron as he passed one. To his mind the little English girl was stored with the potentialities of a powder-magazine.



CHAPTER XIII

THE RAPPROCHEMENT

The noble-hearted humanitarian is ever of the opinion that violence, physical violence, is degrading alike to those who employ it, and to those on whom it is employed. In the main, doubtless, he may be right; but there must be natures, exceptional natures, on which it does not exercise this disastrous effect; and it is curious that there should be two human beings in so small a place as Pyechurch at the same time of this very nature.

There can be no doubt that Pollyooly had smacked Prince Adalbert of Lippe-Schweidnitz with far greater violence than ever she had smacked the abhorred Henry Wiggins for yelling "Ginger!" at her. There can be no doubt that the prince had been so smacked. Yet Pollyooly's face remained the face of an angel child; her devotion to the Lump and her politeness to those with whom she came into contact showed no signs of weakening; and no one could honestly assert that Prince Adalbert looked a bit more like a pig than he had always done. If anything he had lost something of his likeness to that nutritious animal.

At any rate there was no sign of degradation in his behaviour. He now walked about Pyechurch beach as peacefully as you could wish: he destroyed no castles; he kicked no children.

Even that fierce, stout, moustachioed and military Prussian, the Baron von Habelschwert, seemed to have derived benefit from his violent impingement on the left shoulder of the Honourable John Ruffin. Though his more mature nature should have been fixed, there can be no doubt that he wore a softer air, and no longer trod the English sand with the air of a disdainful but perfumed conqueror.

He was by no means an observant man; but stupid as he was, he could not fail to perceive the change in his pupil, for it was forced on his attention by the fact that the prince did not kick his shins for seventy-two hours. The baron was at first surprised, then dismayed: he feared that the fine Hohenzollern spirit of his young charge might have suffered a lasting, weakening shock from his encounter with that angel child; and when the prince for three successive mornings and afternoons did not assault a single little girl, however much smaller than himself those who came within his reach chanced to be, the fear deepened.

Oddly enough the subdued prince did not seem to regard Pollyooly with the bitterness which might have been expected. He did not even shun the sight of her. Indeed, as he made his royal progress along the beach, he would pause and regard her with puzzled but manifestly quite respectful interest, as she played actively not far from her little brother, the Lump, with her young friends.

The baron regarded the Honourable John Ruffin in a very different manner; he could not set eyes on him without scowling horribly. It was the desire of his heart to have the blood of Pollyooly's protector; and though the conduct of Pollyooly had oddly but considerably weakened his confident expectation of the immediate subjugation of the English people by his imperial master he longed with a greater fervour than had ever before burned in him for THE DAY.

The conversations, strictly confined to the British tongue, between the baron and his pupil, were always of the briefest and often truculent. The prince was a silent child, by reason of the fact that he had nothing to say. But one morning as they came down to the beach he startled the baron by saying:

"I want to blay."

"Yes, 'ighness, whad shall we blay ad?" said the Baron von Habelschwert uncomfortably, after a little hesitation.

"I don't want to blay wiz you," said the prince in a tone which showed, beyond any possibility of misconception, that on that matter his mind was made up.

"Bud zere's no one else for you do blay wiz," said the baron in English.

"I want to blay wiz childrens," said the pupil.

The baron drew his heels together and became, though still pear-like, splendidly rigid. His eyes flashed with haughty, but a trifle vicarious pride, as he said:

"Zere are no children for your 'ighness do blay wiz 'ere. Zese are nod 'igh and well-born ones."

"I do nod care," said the prince in the tone of one who knew his own mind quite well.

"Id is imbossible," said the baron in a tone of finality.

The rhinocerine eyes of his little charge flashed in sudden wrath; and he uttered a curious, pig-like snort as he sprang at the baron, and got in one severe kick on his left shin before that thoughtless Prussian, who should have known so well what to expect, could abate his rigidity and bend forward and hold him off at the length of his arms. He well knew that, in that constrained attitude to his bellowing pupil, he was presenting no dignified spectacle. None the less he was aware that he was affording considerable entertainment to the visitors taking the air on the sea-wall above him; and his joy in his young charge was not increased by the fact that among those visitors the Honourable John Ruffin smiled on the scene with amiable interest.

Having ascertained beyond all doubting that his well-shod toes could not reach the shins of his preceptor, the young prince ceased his futile effort, and with a most ungracious air moved along the beach. The limping baron followed him gloomily, with itching fingers. He felt that, in spite of the fact that his imperial master would shortly sweep her land with fire and sword from sea to sea, the lot of the happy English child Pollyooly was to be envied, since she could, and did, smack princes, with a mind untroubled by the sense of their sacrosanctity. Moreover he felt a sad prescience that his young charge, careless of the magnificent blood that flowed in his veins, would play with these children, who were neither high nor well-born. But he was quite unprepared for the actual group of children his young charge chose for playmates. He passed no less than four animated and excited groups before he arrived at that adorned and ruled by Pollyooly.

It chanced that it had decided to play rounders, and was gathered into an excited knot in which everybody was discussing, all at the same time, the process of picking sides.

The prince, shouldering aside, with proud Hohenzollern manliness, two or three little girls, thrust into the centre of the group and said:

"I want do blay."

The debating voices hushed; the other children stared at him with startled eyes, then drew aside leaving him face to face with Pollyooly.

"We don't want him to play with us!" cried Kathleen, who occupied the position of chief friend to Pollyooly.

"No, we don't!" cried the two other little girls.

The prince paid no heed to them; he looked at Pollyooly and said:

"I want do blay."

Pollyooly considered him thoughtfully, weighing the question of his admission to their circle with the care it demanded. He was not very pleasant to look at since he was so podgy, snub-nosed, pasty-faced, and small-eyed; but Pollyooly, mindful of their late encounter, and inspired by the magnanimity of the victor, did not at once reject the appeal.

"Will you promise to behave properly, if we let you play with us?" she said coldly.

The Baron von Habelschwert, standing over the group and nervously twirling his fierce moustache, shuddered and groaned. It was bad enough that his young, but pig-headed Hohenzollern should play at all with children who were neither high, nor well-born; but that he should only be admitted to play with them on terms passed the limit of human decency. He had read often in the sterner, but agrarian, papers of his Fatherland, that, owing to the increase of the Socialist vote, the world was coming to an end. He felt its once so solid mass trembling beneath his feet.

But the hope of the house of Lippe-Schweidnitz, insensible to the tremor, said eagerly:

"Yes."

"All right: then we'll try letting you play with us and see," said Pollyooly.

There came a faint murmur of protest from her friends, or rather from her followers; and she added with comforting assurance:

"Oh, it's all right; you needn't worry about him; I'll see that he behaves, myself."

With that assurance they were content—they had to be; the prince was admitted to the circle; and Pollyooly picked him on her side.

It had the first innings; and the baron expected the prince to be put in first. He was annoyed to observe that, as a mere matter of tactics, since she was by far the fastest of her side, that Pollyooly took that position herself. He was further annoyed when she put in her friend Kathleen next, an act of sheer favouritism unjustified by Kathleen's capacity; and after Kathleen she put in a little boy, and then another little girl. As they played their innings, she stood beside the prince and instructed him in the game. Once, since he appeared slow to grasp her meaning, she caught him by the shoulder and shook him to make it clearer. The Baron von Habelschwert ground his teeth. When at last the prince did go in, the baron's heart swelled with proud expectation: his gallant little charge would display to those English children (they were neither high, nor well-born) the natural superiority of his royal blood and race.

The prince, however, did not fulfil this loyal expectation. He hit the ball, indeed, and in obedience to Pollyooly's shriek of instruction, started to run. But he started to run the wrong way round. His side shrieked as one child, as Pollyooly sprang upon him, swung him round, and shoved him along in the right direction. She succeeded in arresting his mad course at the first base by one of the shrillest shrieks of "Stop!" that ever burst from human lung. The next time the ball was hit she set him going again by a companion shriek; and with others of a like piercing quality (they seemed to flow from her lungs in an inexhaustible abundance) she guided him safely round the bases and home. From the blundering, stumbling way he ran, her shrieks seemed to be the only things in the world of which he was really conscious.

The baron watched the confused performance of his little charge with a strong feeling that something very serious indeed was the matter with the order of nature. When Pollyooly's side went out to field, he was no more satisfied by the prince's performance. Whenever the ball came to him, in spite of the fact that an encouraging, instructive shriek from Pollyooly reached him first, he either missed it, or fumbled it; and he always shied it in short. The baron's feeling that there was something very wrong with the cosmos grew stronger. He became depressed and yet more depressed by the fact that the prince was playing to an audience; for all the respectful and admiring nurses edged down the beach to behold him play; and those of them whose little charges were playing in the same game with him, assumed insufferable airs.

After a while the children tired of rounders and betook themselves to building a sand-castle. Since he had been admitted to their circle on her instance, Pollyooly seemed to feel herself responsible for the prince. She seemed also to feel it more important that he should learn to dig properly than that she should dig herself. For, giving him her spade, she stood over him and urged him to ply it with the exacting persistence of a biblical Egyptian superintending the making of bricks. The baron walked moodily up and down outside the castle wall, considering bitterly the while the defects in the cosmos.

The morning sped; and the prince perspired. At last the punctual baron observed that it was time to return home to lunch. In fact his vigilant stomach apprised him of the fact before his watch.

He came close to the castle wall and said:

"It's time for your Highness to coom 'ome."

His highness took no notice of him.

In a louder tone the baron said:

"Coom along, your Highness. Id's dime we go 'ome."

His highness shot a savage glance at him out of the corner of his eye, hunched his shoulders, and went on digging.

"Don't you hear the baron calling you, Prince?" said Pollyooly in a tone of some displeasure.

His highness seemed likely to withdraw his head right out of sight between his shoulders, and went on digging. He was still perspiring.

"Now you go along at once—like a good boy!" said Pollyooly sharply.

His highness raised his disappearing head and saw the cold resolve in her deep-blue eyes. He gave himself a little shake, stuck his spade into the sand, stretched his neck and went: but not like a good boy. He stumbled down the castle wall with his teeth set very tight, and immediately on reaching level ground kicked the shins of his unprepared preceptor. The baron, as was his wont, bent like a bow and held his little charge out at the length of his arms beyond the range of his shins, till his wrath should have abated.

Pollyooly's face filled with horror; she came springing lightly down the castle wall; cried: "Don't do that, you naughty little boy!" and caught the prince a resounding slap on the cheek.

The pent-up feelings of the prince escaped in a loud yell. He loosed his preceptor and pressed a hand to his stinging cheek.

It was too much for the baron. He tore his hat from his head, flung it to earth, ground it into the earth with his heel, and flung his arms to heaven in one frenzied movement:

"Ach Gott!" he cried to the unregarding sky. "Thad a liddle Eengleesh-she-devil-child should strike a Hohenzollern!"

Moved by his emotion, Pollyooly looked at him in anxious surprise:

"It's all right," she said in a soothing voice. "You don't know how to manage him. He'll go like a lamb."

Her surmise (it could have been no more than a surmise) proved accurate. The prince went blubbering, but he went like a lamb.

It might be supposed that his proud, Hohenzollern blood would have boiled for hours at the blow. Nothing of the kind.

After a hearty lunch he rose and said firmly:

"I'm going to blay wiz Bollyooly."

He went. The baron followed him gloomily. Now he knew the cosmic all to be a mere time-honored cheat.

In this order they came down on to the beach and approached a group of children in which Pollyooly reigned. The prince entered it with the air of an uninvited guest, very doubtful of his welcome, and said to Pollyooly in a tone half assertive, half beseeching:

"I've coom to blay."

Pollyooly looked at him with very stern eyes and said: "Well, you quite understand you've got to behave yourself."

The baron groaned.

Pollyooly turned to him and said with polite interest:

"Has he kicked you again?"

"Ach Himmel!" said the baron; and he thrust his hands into his pockets, clenched his fingers very tightly, and walked away with bowed head.



CHAPTER XIV

THE TRAINING OF ROYALTY

On that day began the real instruction of Prince Adalbert of Lippe-Schweidnitz in the art of life and the graces of social intercourse. Pollyooly continued it with unswerving firmness. Her method of treating a Hohenzollern was indeed entirely subversive of all current ideas on the matter of the deference due to the members of a family which has practically made the history of Europe since the beginning of this century. It seemed at times as if to her a Hohenzollern was a hardly animate object which you shoved here and there as you might an easy-chair which kept catching in the carpet, or at other times a mere beast of burden which you shoved, or shook, or cuffed gently into doing what you wanted with a moderate, but uncertain, degree of precision. Often however a piercing shriek was sufficient to produce the required action.

The prince was always in a perspiration, and often out of breath. But he seemed to thrive on the treatment: his appetite improved; his pastiness lessened; his skin grew clearer; and his flesh became less abundant and harder. He also became quicker in his movements, and showed many more glimmerings of intelligence, sometimes sustained for seconds at a time.

The baron's deferential soul could not endure the situation; and it never occurred to him to make the enquiries which would have informed him that Pollyooly, as a red Deeping, was of an older strain than the Hohenzollerns. He made many efforts to withdraw the prince from her society. He remonstrated both with her and with his little charge on the extraordinary impropriety of their being acquainted. But they seemed to find it entirely natural; and his efforts were vain. The prince, in truth, followed Pollyooly about; and what he followed her about like was a dog. He did not indeed spring to do her bidding, for he was not built to spring; but it was plain that if he could have sprung he would.

Perhaps the most remarkable fact about him was the improvement in his spirits: he was losing his air of gloomy savagery; often he smiled—at a dish which took his fancy, and on setting out for the sands to join Pollyooly. At times, when he had performed some small feat, clumsily indeed, but not with a quite incredible clumsiness, he would turn to her a triumphant, but appealing, eye which begged for a word, or a smile of approval. The humane Pollyooly rarely failed to give him that word or smile to brace him to fresh efforts. With other little girls he had come to be civil but uninterested; and little boys he ignored.

There are minds to whom it would have occurred that there were other seaside resorts equally healthy with Pyechurch to one of which the young prince might be removed to save him from the social degradation of playing with children who were neither high, nor well-born. The baron's was not one of these minds: he was a soldier of the emperor; he had been instructed that his young charge was to spend a month at Pyechurch; at Pyechurch he must spend it. But he wrote a long and earnest letter to his august master, the Grand Duke of Lippe-Schweidnitz, informing him, with full details, of his son's unfortunate social entanglement with a red-haired English child, and of the impossibility, in the circumstances, of his putting an end to it. He got no answer, for the grand duke was splendidly busy maintaining the agrarian interests of his Fatherland. The baron therefore found himself compelled to accept the situation gloomily. Presently he was accepting it with resignation. He found that Pollyooly lightened his work. She relieved him of his little charge for the greater part of the day. He could now carry a deck-chair on to the sands, and stretched at full length in it, with a large, but not extravagantly fragrant, cigar in his mouth, could spend the sunny hours in the perusal of the works of the English novelists who appealed most strongly to his idealistic Teutonic sensibilities.

Sometimes however he was disturbed in this resigned acceptance of the situation. One afternoon he raised his head from the enthralled perusal of "Maiden Sweet" to find that the sands were empty of his charge. He struggled up from his chair, dropped the luscious masterpiece into it, and hurried in search of him. Pollyooly was a good sixty yards away; and he was breathless when he reached her. He clamoured wheezily for information as to the whereabouts of the prince. Pollyooly told him, indifferently enough, that he had gone to the village. The baron sought the village at his best, but curious, toddling rush. In the middle of it he met his young charge plodding along with an air of perfect content. In his hand he bore a paper bag.

"Vot 'af your 'ighness been doing?" cried his richly purple preceptor.

"Bollyooly zent me to buy bebbermints," said his charge stolidly, without stopping.

"Mein Gott!" cried the baron. "And now that she-devil-child uses you as a lackey!"

"She wanted zem," said his charge stolidly, pursuing his way without turning his head.

"Bud bebbermints you do not like!" cried the baron.

"Bollyooly wanted bebbermints," said the prince stolidly.

The baron said no more because there was no more to say.

He followed his charge to the beach and sought his chair; his charge sought Pollyooly. Gloomily the baron resumed his perusal of "Maiden Sweet." He had not read half a page when the thoughtful Pollyooly sent the prince to offer him a peppermint. The baron refused it with the proper cold scorn. The prince put it into his own mouth.

"Bud bebbermints you do not like!" said the baron again.

"Bollyooly says bebbermints is goot," said the prince stolidly; and he turned on his heel.

The baron searched the far-smiling sea with wild, questioning eyes. It offered neither explanation nor comfort.

It chanced a few days later that the Honourable John Ruffin put Pollyooly's skilful cooking to the further test of grilling mushrooms along with his bacon. They came from the marsh. Presently to Pollyooly's prudent mind it seemed foolish to pay for vegetables which might be gathered for nothing. She resolved to gather them herself; and one afternoon with that end in view she came down to the sands, leading the Lump, and carrying a basket, and suggested to Kathleen and others of her young friends that they should accompany her on her quest and share the spoil. But their nurses, fore-seeing extra work from the mud in the marsh, would not allow them to go.

The prince, who had been waiting patiently for the arrival of Pollyooly, while the baron slept in his deck-chair, listened to the discussion with uncomprehending ears. It did not occur to her to invite the be-tutored Hohenzollern to accompany her; but when she started, the prince, doubtful of the reception of a direct offer to escort her would receive, followed her at a distance of about thirty yards. Pollyooly was giving her attention to the Lump, and was not aware of her follower until she had crossed the bridge over the dyke, from the road into the marsh. There she turned and saw him; and at the first sight of him she was minded to send him back to his sleeping tutor. Then it occurred to her that the company of the prince would be better than no company at all; and she suffered him to come.

Though neither of them had any conversation, Pollyooly talked away to the prince and the Lump, and was quite content with the grunts of assent with which the prince punctuated her observations. But she was presently annoyed to find that he shone no more as an assistant mushroomer than as a conversationalist. It was not so much that he was ignorant of the difference between mushrooms and toadstools, and equally unskilful in discovering either, as that he often trod on the fairest members of the group he was picking. Pollyooly therefore gave him the basket to carry and picked the mushrooms herself. Twice he dropped it and scattered them over the turf. She chid him but gently and carried it herself.

But destiny, which dogs the steps of princes, was leading him to a catastrophe. The basket was large and growing heavy; but the indefatigable Pollyooly pushed deeper into the marsh. They had crossed several dykes safely; then they came to a plank over a small dyke, nearly dried up. Pollyooly took every possible care to get the expedition across safely. She carried the Lump across and then the basket of mushrooms. Then she turned to watch the passage of the prince. The plank was not more than ten feet long; and it was destiny which chose the exact middle of it for the prince to fall off. He struck the dyke with a splash which drew a cry of delight from the Lump, and sank up to his knees in the thick mud. He burst into a terrified bellow; and Pollyooly hurried down the steep bank to help him out. But destiny had arranged that he should be just out of her reach; and he was too frightened to make the effort to struggle to her helping hand.

For a while Pollyooly, for all her power of resource, was at a loss; and the bellowing of the prince did nothing to clear her wits. Then she saw how she could reach him. She dug her feet into the bank, hugged the plank over the dyke with her left arm, and leaning forward, succeeded in getting a grip of his left wrist, and began to tug. Her grip seemed to inspirit him, for he began to struggle hard toward the bank. It was not an easy business in the thick mud, but thanks to the purchase afforded by the plank, Pollyooly could put most of her strength into the effort and slowly dragged him on to the firmer mud at the edge and then on to the bank.

Still blubbering a little, he followed Pollyooly up the bank; on the top of it she turned and surveyed him with horrified eyes. He was wrapped nearly up to his waist in a smooth, dripping garment of greenish mud; and patches of it adorned the rest of him. It would have been difficult to imagine anything more unlike a Hohenzollern in a white sailor suit; and his face was hardly attractive enough to justify you in comparing him to the dripping, weed-be-draped Lorelei of his native land.

"Well! You are an aggravating little boy! Whatever am I to do with you?" cried Pollyooly in a tone of despair.

The prince uttered an apologetic grunt.

"The only thing to do is to get you home as quick as I can," she said heavily.

She carried the Lump back across the dyke, then the basket of mushrooms. Then she led the prince across it. They took their slow way back to the village, the prince leaving behind him a trail which would have gladdened the heart of the last, or any other, of the Cherokees.

The Baron von Habelschwert, sleeping peacefully beside a sweet work of genius, called "Dove Wifie," which had fallen from his hand, missed the departure of his young charge in the wake of Pollyooly. He slept for an hour; and when he did awake, her friends had moved a long way down the beach. He struggled to his feet, and set out in search of the prince, assured that he was somewhere on the sands playing with his active, but socially impossible, protector. At first he sought him with careless eyes, then with keener; but it was some twenty minutes before he satisfied himself that neither his charge nor Pollyooly were on the sands. Then he set out, in some annoyance to search the village; and when he had drawn blank all the village shops at which sweets were sold, he began to grow anxious and alarmed. For all his military contempt for the English as a people soon to be subjugated, he had a deep distrust of them. It awoke suddenly in its most violent form; and he began to suspect that the perfidious politicians of England had stolen his Hohenzollern.

The suspicion presently became a conviction; and he acted on it with splendid, but unwonted, energy. In little more than ten minutes the village was ringing with the news that the prince was lost; and the baron was toddling furiously along at the head of a band composed of the village children, the village idiot, some idle fishermen, and a number of unoccupied visitors who had leapt at the chance of action. There was no lack of theories. Every other member of the group had one of his own. The baron himself made no secret of his belief that the prince was the victim of a political plot, till the Honourable John Ruffin, out of mere idle curiosity, stopped the procession to enquire its object and on learning it proclaimed his firm conviction that the prince was neither lost, stolen, nor strayed.

By this time the news had spread to the sands; and a nurse came hurrying up with the information that the prince had gone into the marsh, mushrooming with Pollyooly.

"Ach Gott! Then that little she-devil-child haf 'im drowned in a dyke!" said the baron cheerfully.

The suggestion increased greatly the interest of his followers; and they accompanied him into the marsh eagerly. On that expanse figures are seen at a great distance; but the searchers had gone a long way into it before they caught sight of the children. At some distance the figures of Pollyooly and the Lump, and even the basket of mushrooms were plainly recognised. But what was that strange object which moved beside them? The baron and his band quickened their steps, Pollyooly still walked at the leisurely gait which suited the Lump.

It was not till he was within ten yards of them that the procession and the baron recognised his young charge. The procession began to laugh heartily.

The baron flung his arms to heaven and cried, or, to be exact, howled:

"Vhat is it you haf done ad 'im?"

"I didn't do anything!" cried Pollyooly with indignant heat. "He did it himself! He would fall into the dyke! He's the most aggravating little boy I ever knew!"

"You trow 'im into ze dyke! You id on purpose did!" cried the furious baron.

"Bollyooly didn't," said his little charge stolidly.

"Do try and have a little sense, Baron von Habelschwert," said the Honourable John Ruffin, smiling upon the hope of the house of Lippe-Schweidnitz. "Pollyooly wouldn't throw any one into dykes."

"Bud look at 'im!" cried the baron. "'e will the enteric fever haf!"

"Oh, no. He didn't get any water into his mouth," said Pollyooly quickly. "I made him open it and looked, because Mr. Ruffin told me the marsh water gave people fever. It's only mud on his clothes."

"Moodd! Onlie moodd!" howled the baron. "His cloze, zey are spoiled! Ze cloze of the bezd dailor of Schweidnitz!"

That was a misfortune which appealed deeply to Pollyooly. She looked at the spoiled suit of the prince very sadly, and said generously:

"Well, I'll give him half of the mushrooms—though really he didn't gather them; and I had to carry the basket."

"Mooshrooms!" howled the baron. "Vhat is mooshrooms wiz cloze? Zeze English, zey are all mad!"

In his emotion the baron had not kept his usual wary watch on his young charge, and so failed to observe the light of battle gather and gleam in his eyes. But as he finished the prince sprang at him, cried angrily: "Bollyooly isn't!" and kicked him on the shin.

The kick was stiff and lacked its usual snap; but it was sufficiently vigorous to dislodge a good deal of the mud from the once white trouser-leg and bespatter the legs of the baron, who uttered a short howl and bent like a bow, holding off his little charge, and gazing wildly round the marsh. This time Pollyooly did not come to his aid; she gazed at him with a cold eye.

"It serves you right—talking like that about people when they try to make up," she said coldly.

The prince, encouraged by this quite unexpected approval, made another fine effort to plant a second kick of remonstrance on the shin of his preceptor. His foot missed it; but plenty of mud hit it.

"That's enough, Adalbert. Stop it!" said the magnanimous Pollyooly sharply.

Adalbert stopped it.

The baron ground his teeth at this new familiarity; but was glad to be loosed by his admonished charge; and the procession took its triumphant way back to the village.

The prince's valet was a long while cleaning him; but directly after his tea he was out on the sands again, seeking Pollyooly.



CHAPTER XV

THE ATTITUDE OF THE GRAND DUKE

The baron's bitterness was deepened by this accident to his charge; and he continued stubbornly to lay the blame of it on Pollyooly: if she had not actually flung him into the dyke, she had led him into the marsh, where the dyke was. Then two mornings later there came a telegram to inform him that the Grand Duke of Lippe-Schweidnitz, on his way to answer the letter of appeal in person, was already in London, and would reach Pyechurch early in the afternoon. The baron was a glad man. All the morning, reclined in his deck-chair, with eyes full of a gloating triumph, he watched Pollyooly direct the play of the prince; and as he watched he hummed an aria, the same aria, of Mozart. He foresaw a speedy end to this distressing social entanglement and her evil domination.

At lunch he informed his royal charge of the coming of his august sire, and told him that he must stay at home to welcome him.

"I go do blay wiz Bollyooly," said his young charge stolidly.

"You vill nod go," said the baron firmly.

His young charge said no more; he only looked at his beaming preceptor with eyes cold with the steeliest contempt. The baron failed to grasp the purport of the look.

After lunch he had the prince carefully cleaned, and then set him in an easy chair under his eye, to await the coming of his august sire, who would arrive about a quarter to three. Then he walked up and down the room working out the most effective presentation of his indictment of Pollyooly and the social entanglement. At intervals he gesticulated and muttered a phrase. He was making excellent progress with it and at five and twenty minutes to three he was at the end of it. The prince sat stolidly in the easy chair by the long windows. At twenty-four minutes to three the baron flung out the last damning phrase (with the appropriate splendid gesture) at his image in the looking-glass over the mantelpiece. Then he turned to beam triumphantly on his little charge. The easy chair was empty; the prince had gone.

With language far less sonorous, but more staccato, the baron bounced to the window, just in time to see his little charge disappear swiftly over the edge of the sea-wall fifty yards away. Unfortunately the baron wore his hair too short to be able to tear handfuls of it from his head, or he would have bereft himself of a handful or two. But everything that language could do to ease him, language did. He must be at home to receive his august master: etiquette demanded it imperatively. He had no time to recover his young charge, whose presence etiquette demanded no less imperatively. Dashed from his height of splendid triumph, and exhausted by the fluency with which he had dealt with the appalling situation, he sank heavily into the easy chair, an embittered man.

He was quickly roused from his gloom by the stopping of a barouche before the house. In it sat his august master, a splendid round figure of a man, clad in the lightest-coloured tweeds Schweidnitz could boast, and surmounted by the whitest of white bowlers. His large, broad, square face ended in three well-moulded chins. In the middle of the fine expanse of face (his was not a high forehead) was a bristling imperial moustache, far fiercer than the baron's; above it rose a big, thick nose. His eyes were a bright blue; and they twinkled in an engaging fashion somewhat disappointing in a royal personage. Beside him sat a slim, contrasting equerry.

The baron rushed forth, and after the manner of his caste, was abject in his apologies for the absence of Prince Adalbert. . . . He had taken every precaution. . . . All had been in vain. . . . The infatuated unfortunate would steal away to the little she-devil-child.

"Ach, zo?" said the grand duke, who made a point of speaking English in England; and he descended with earth-shaking majesty from the creaking barouche.

"Ve vill go to zem," he said after testing the soil of Pyechurch with a cautious foot to make sure that it was equal to his weight.

On the way to the sea-wall the baron poured forth his damning indictment, disjointedly and without the fierceness of phrase and splendour of gesture he had practised; and three times the grand duke said, somewhat phlegmatically, the baron thought:

"Ach zo?"

They came out on to the wall just above the band of Pollyooly's subjects, hot and excited in a game of rounders.

The quick eye of the grand duke at once espied Prince Adalbert running to field a ball.

"Ach, he is zlimmer!" he said in a tone of satisfaction.

"Zlimmer? He is zlimmer, your Highness. Id iz zat leedle she-devil-child. She nevare—nod nevare—leds 'im be steel. All ze day she makes 'im roosh and roosh. He haf nevare no breath in hees loongs—nod nevare!"

"Ach, zo?" said the grand duke calmly. "He is rooning mooch faster zan he vas could."

"Id's zat leedle she-devil-child! She make 'im roon and roon all ze day!" cried the baron.

"Ach, zo?" said the grand duke. "Alzo he is peenk—guite peenk."

The satisfaction in his tone had increased. He could hardly be called a fond parent, in the matter of Adalbert; he might more truly be said to bear with him. Indeed he had never been able to explain the boy to his satisfaction. There was perhaps a slight physical resemblance between Adalbert and his parents; but whereas he knew himself to be one of the astutest princes in the German Empire and his wife to be an uncommonly clear-witted woman, no father's partiality hid from him the fact that Adalbert was obtuse. He was inclined to accept sadly the theory of Professor Muller, professor of anatomy and physiology at the University of Lippe-Schweidnitz, and court physician, that Adalbert cast back to his great-grandfather Franz, who had been known to his irreverent subjects as "The Dolt."

He gazed at the perspiring and excited band for a minute in silence. Then he said:

"Wheech is ze leedle she-devil-child?"

"Zat von—zat von in ze meedle—wiz ze red 'air," said the baron.

He pointed to Pollyooly in the middle of the ring where she was acting as pitcher, her face flushed, her eyes shining, her red hair a flying cloud.

An immense slow smile spread over the expanse of royal face; and the grand duke cried: "Mein Gott! Bud id is nod a child at all—zat! Id is an anchel—a leedle anchel—Italian renascence! Is id nod, Erkelenz?" And he turned to his slim equerry.

"Yes, Highness: authentic," said the equerry.

The Baron von Habelschwert gasped; he could not believe his ears.

The little girl, batting, whacked the ball over the prince's head.

"Run, Adalbert! Run!" shrieked Pollyooly.

"Roon, Adalbert! Der Teufel! Roon!" bellowed the grand duke.

It is hard to say whether the shriek of Pollyooly or the terrific bellow of his august sire was the sharper spur to the prince's legs; but he saved the rounder.

"Sblendid! 'e did not roon like an ox," said the grand duke almost proudly. "Vhat did you write vas ze name of zat leedle anchel?"

"Bollyooly, your Highness," gasped the baron in a feverish doubt whether he was standing on his head or his heels, for the grand duke had heard her call the hope of the house of Lippe-Schweidnitz "Adalbert" with his own ears!

"Bollyooly? A beautiful name!" cried the grand duke with enthusiasm.

Then came the great event of Prince Adalbert's life. The little boy who was batting hit the ball right into his hands. He grabbed at it; and by a miracle it stuck in his fingers.

His side leapt and shrieked as one child; and the grand duke leapt and bellowed. The shock of his descent on the sea-wall made it quiver for many feet round him.

He turned upon his slim equerry, seized his arm, and shook him as the wind shakes a blade of corn.

"Did you see zat? Id is ze creeket! 'e caught 'im out," he bellowed in stentorian tones which rang out far across the marsh. "Bollyooly has made 'im zlim! She has made 'im roon! She has made 'im peenk! She has taught 'im ze creeket! She shall rewarded be! I will gonfer on 'er ze Order of Chastity of Lippe-Schweidnitz of ze zecond class!"

He loosed his slim equerry, and hammered his enormous right palm with his huge left fist.

The slim equerry shook his head (this time without any assistance from his august master) and said:

"She is too young, your Highness. Ze order can only be gonferred on ladies of twenty-von or elder."

"Zen I will gonfer it on 'er when she is twenty-von! Bud I will reward 'er alzo now! Vetch 'er!" cried the grand duke.

The slim equerry went down the sea-wall across the sands to Pollyooly. The game stopped while he conferred with her. Pollyooly looked from him to the fine, round figure on the sea-wall; then she patted her hair, smoothed her frock, called to her young companions that she would be back in a minute or two, and went with the slim equerry. She was not timid, or even shy. Her estimate of the royal family of Lippe-Schweidnitz had been formed from her knowledge of Prince Adalbert; and it was not a high one. That royal family left her unimpressed and certainly unrevering. She was hardly curious about the grand duke.

On the way to him the slim equerry asked her her name, and told her to be sure to address the grand duke as "your Highness."

On the sea-wall he took her hand, grew rigid, saluted, and said:

"I present the Fraeulein Bollyooly von Bride to your Highness."

Like the well-mannered child she was, Pollyooly dropped a curtsey.

The grand duke seized her hand, and shook it warmly, and cried:

"Mein Gott! if you were zeven—five years elder, I would keess you! Bud id is far to sdoop. You haf done great good to my zon, ze Prince Adalbert. You haf made him peenk—guite peenk; and you haf taught him ze creeket. Id iz sblendid; and you moost rewarded be. Gif me my burse, Erkelenz."

The slim equerry took a purse from his pocket and handed it to the grand duke. The grand duke opened it, turned it upside down, poured on to his palm eleven golden sovereigns, and pressed them with somewhat clumsy fingers into Pollyooly's hands.

The amazed Pollyooly flushed; and her eyes shone like bright stars; the family of Lippe-Schweidnitz rose a thousand feet in her estimation.

"Oh! Thank you, your Highness!" she gasped.

"Zere is no zanks—nod none! You haf made Adalbert peenk. You are von sblendid anchel child. And id iz me to zank you," said the grand duke; and very gently, for the size of his fingers, he patted her head. Then he drew himself up and, with a splendid wave of his gigantic hand, added:

"Und now go and blay wiz Adalbert—blay wiz him always!"



CHAPTER XVI

POLLYOOLY ENTERTAINS ROYALTY

Pollyooly came away from the presence of the grand duke in something of a daze. She came down the steps in the sea-wall quite unconscious of the fact that she was not moving over level ground. The eleven golden sovereigns in her hand felt too good to be true; and at the bottom of the steps she stopped and counted them with eyes which could hardly believe what they saw: eleven golden sovereigns.

She gave them into the care of Mrs. Gibson while, in obedience to the behest of the grand duke, she continued to play rounders.

The game had fallen into a state of suspended animation during her absence from it. Her return enlivened it. Presently she was again absorbed in it, playing it with the concentration with which she did most things, the concentration which is so large a part of genius, which made her one of the finest grillers of bacon in England. She forgot the grand duke; she forgot the eleven golden sovereigns; she thought only of the game; and she drove her team and the perspiring prince with merciless vigor.

The grand duke watched it closely, now and then applauding in an excited, ringing voice. Prince Adalbert had performed his one great exploit and was now declined upon a lower level. He played his best, obeying with his natural clumsiness the shrieked commands of Pollyooly; but he did not again arise to a really meritorious feat. Nevertheless, the grand duke was content with him.

He did not indeed watch him very closely; he had chiefly eyes for Pollyooly.

Once he said with enthusiasm:

"She is ze gompanion Adalbert 'af need of."

And again he said with enthusiasm:

"'ow it would be goot if she goom to Schweidnitz and blay wiz 'im all ze days, Erkelenz!"

The slim equerry shook his head and said in a tone of conviction:

"She would nod coom, Highness."

Being of a younger generation, he spoke better English than his royal master.

The grand duke shook his head sadly, and said;

"No: she would nod goom. Would she nod goom for mooch money, you zink?"

"I do nod zink she could be persuaded to coom," said his equerry.

"No: she would nod goom," said the grand duke. The baron had an inspiration; he said in a stern voice:

"Ze day, 'ighness; ze day will goom soon. Zen you will gommand only; and Bollyooly will obey."

"Ach, yes: ze day," said the grand duke, watching the playing children. "It will goom soon doubtlez. Bud Bollyooly, will she obey? Zeze English blay zere creeket very 'ard."

"She would be made obey," said the baron firmly.

The grand duke changed the subject by raising his voice in a splendid, heartening roar at Pollyooly, who was running swiftly around the bases; and for nearly an hour he did his best to burst the welkin. Then he summoned the perspiring prince, shouted and waved good-bye to Pollyooly, and walked to his son's lodgings to take a little unnecessary nourishment before driving to the station.

Pollyooly went on playing till a quarter of five, when the game broke up to let the players go to their tea. She collected the Lump from the Gibson nurse and the eleven sovereigns from Mrs. Gibson, and started down the beach tea-wards. As she went down the beach several earnest enquirers stopped her to ask what the grand duke had said to her and what she had said to the grand duke. They wore the air of being very deeply impressed by the occurrence.

Pollyooly gratified their curiosity. Four of them said that they would have been so confused by being suddenly hurried into the presence of royalty that, not knowing whether they were standing on their heads or their heels, they would not have found a word to say.

Pollyooly said quite truly that she had not suffered from any such confusion. She did not add, as with no less truthfulness she might have done, that what had induced a slight access of confusion in her had been the sudden and unexpected possession of eleven golden sovereigns. But she had a feeling, somewhat obscure, that such a happening should not confuse a red Deeping; therefore she did not say anything about it.

She and the Lump were still at tea when the Honourable John Ruffin returned from his golf and joined them. She told him of the coming of the grand duke, of his thanks for the improvement in Prince Adalbert's health, and of the eleven splendid golden sovereigns.

"And very nice too. I congratulate you," said the Honourable John Ruffin cheerfully.

"Thank you," said Pollyooly.

"I always have heard that the grand duke is a very decent sort, as well as being astute; and this proves it," he said.

"But it does seem such a lot for the little I've done. I could have done a lot more, if I'd known," said Pollyooly in a tone of discomfort.

"Not a bit of it," said the Honourable John Ruffin in a confident tone. "As what you've done goes, eleven golden sovereigns isn't a penny too much for it. I haven't observed the treatment; but I have no doubt that you're making another boy of Prince Adalbert."

"Well, he does look better and he does get about quicker than he did," said Pollyooly slowly, weighing her words.

"Well, that's a good deal," said the Honourable John Ruffin in an encouraging tone.

"And he is a little brighter too, though he does only grunt; and of course he behaves better; he doesn't knock the other children about like he used to."

"Well, there you are," said the Honourable John Ruffin, in the tone of one completely satisfied.

"Oh, but he is slow!" Pollyooly protested. "It would take weeks and weeks to really do anything with him—weeks and weeks."

"But what can you expect?" said the Honourable John Ruffin amiably. "The red Deepings were notable people, ruling a county, and hacking and hewing the best people in four counties round, when the ancestors of the prince were swineherds in a Prussian forest. And those ancestors stayed in that forest for five hundred years after that. Prince Adalbert doesn't throw back more than a hundred and fifty years. If a red Deeping produced an Adalbert, he would throw back six hundred and fifty years; and it isn't done."

"Yes," said Pollyooly politely, though she did not follow at all his abstruse dissertation.

"So you see you needn't feel overpaid at all," he said.

"No," said Pollyooly in the tone of one perfectly satisfied.

"Besides, if you do, you can always put in a little more training."

"Oh, yes: that was what I was meaning to do," she said.

Now that Pollyooly had been approved, or rather enthusiastically welcomed, as the ideal companion of Prince Adalbert, the baron was all affability and winning smiles. He had indeed reason to be, for she made life much easier for him. Without a care he abandoned Prince Adalbert to her whenever she would have him, and sat reading or sleeping in his deck-chair on the sunny sands with a mind wholly at peace. With that approved guardian the prince must be safe.

Thus it came about that he became Pollyooly's perpetual companion, or, to be exact, her perpetual hanger-on. He could not be said to afford companionship to her, for, like the Lump, he preferred the grunt to articulate speech. He played in all the games in which she played—at least, if they were not too difficult for his understanding. If they were, he watched her play them with the dogged attention of an enthusiast.

As she came to know him better and better, it is to be feared that Pollyooly remembered his exalted station less and less. She quite forgot the prince in the boy. She sometimes deplored the fact to Mrs. Gibson that though Adalbert could now be trusted not to get into mischief by any act of will, he was so stupid that he needed a perpetual eye on him.

The Honourable John Ruffin sometimes enquired about his progress in morals, manners, and intelligence; Pollyooly's report on it was always dispirited. But he was surprised, on returning home from Littlestone to tea one evening, to find Pollyooly entertaining royalty in the parlour of the flustered Mrs. Wilson.

The prince had come back from a walk through the marsh with her, tired; and she had thought it better that he should have tea before walking the length of the village to his own lodging.

The Honourable John Ruffin did not let his surprise be seen; he greeted his royal guest civilly and sat down. Pollyooly questioned him closely and with genuine interest about his successes and reverses on the links. Then the Honourable John Ruffin observed that his royal guest was flushed; then he discovered that Pollyooly was entertaining him in a fashion at once negligent and drastic: she made no effort to include him in their talk, but she was watching him with the eye of a lynx and giving him a lesson in table manners with the coldest serenity.

"What is the matter with our royal guest exactly?" said the Honourable John Ruffin presently.

"He is so hard to teach," said Pollyooly plaintively. "You'd be surprised. I keep telling him not to eat like a pig; and for about four mouthfuls he doesn't. Then he forgets all about it; and I have to begin all over again."

The guilty flush deepened in the cheeks of the prince.

"You must give it time to sink in. He's not used to learning things; he has been so neglected," said the Honourable John Ruffin with a hospitable desire to make things easier for her royal guest.

Pollyooly shook her head doubtfully, and frowned sadly upon the prince.

"It would take weeks and weeks; and I don't really ever see him at meals," she said.

"Never mind: do what you can when you get the chance," said the Honourable John Ruffin in a heartening tone.

"That's what I must do," said Pollyooly; but there was no great hopefulness in her voice.

Sadly she handed a plate of cake to Prince Adalbert. There was a sudden gleam in his small, but Hohenzollern, eye, and in one swift gesture he took, or rather, to be exact, grabbed a slice, and thrust a corner of it into his mouth.

As Pollyooly had said, for the first four bites all was well; but the next three were accompanied by a slushy noise such as arises in a pigstye at mealtime.

"There! There it is again!" she cried in tones of the bitterest protest. "Isn't it dreadful?"

The prince flushed a darker red and hushed the slushy accompaniment.

The Honourable John Ruffin looked sympathetically sad.

"I couldn't have believed that anybody could be so hard to teach a little thing like that to," said Pollyooly mournfully.

The prince grunted.

"Yes. I know you try to do your best—you needn't tell me that," said Pollyooly, who appeared to understand his syncopated Prussian. "But what is the good of a best like that?"

The prince finished the slice of cake with only two more slushy sounds. Pollyooly sighed once or twice; and tea came to an end.

They rose; and Pollyooly said with resolution:

"I see what I shall have to do. I shall have to look after his outdoor manners only."



CHAPTER XVII

THE DUKE HAS AN IDEA

Pollyooly did not again entertain royalty. She kept firmly to her resolve to superintend only the outdoor manners and behaviour of Prince Adalbert. She would not have her feelings again harrowed by his painfully exact rendering of the noises made by a sturdy, happy porker over its trough. But out of doors he continued, for the rest of her stay, to be her perpetual, noiseless, devoted, and generally perspiring squire.

That stay came to an end along with the Honourable John Ruffin's windfall. It had been a very pleasant stay; Pollyooly had enjoyed it more than any time of her life, more even than the days she had spent at Ricksborough Court when Lord Ronald Ricksborough had come there from Eton to spend his holidays. She was a little doubtful (for all that they were engaged to be married when she should have grown up and fitted herself to become the wife of an English peer by dancing for a while in musical comedy) whether the days at Pyechurch would be more pleasant if he were there, for he would naturally take the place of leader, and she was very happy in that position herself.

She wrote only one letter, a brief letter, to him from Pyechurch, for she was really too busy to write more often (at the Temple she wrote at least once every ten days) and he wrote back to say that he wished he were with her instead of mugging away at his beastly work in his stuffy study. His letter brought home to Pollyooly the great advantage she had over richer children in having years ago passed the seven standards at the Muttle Deeping school, and so done with tedious school-books for good and all.

It was a sad day for her and the Lump when their stay at Pyechurch came to an end; but it was an even sadder day for Prince Adalbert. He was losing the one friend he had ever made, the only person in the world for whom he felt a warm admiration and a genuine respect—as warm an admiration indeed as his somewhat limited spirit was capable of feeling. It was not able to attain to the great heights of emotion; but to such a height of grief as it could rise to, it rose. As for his display of that grief, had he been a pretty boy the onlookers could not have failed to find it pathetic; as it was, for all that they were most of them keenly sensible of his royal condition, they were hard put to it not to find it grotesque.

Tears were not in keeping with his Hohenzollern face; and when he at last realised that Pollyooly was really going and for good, he bellowed like a very small, but broken-hearted bull.

A number of Pollyooly's friends and subjects had come to bid her good-bye; Prince Adalbert was no little hindrance to their farewells, for he had a tight grip on Pollyooly's skirt; and not only did his bellowing drown the sound of their voices but also he kept her chiefly busy trying to soothe him.

When at last she detached him from her skirt and bade him good-bye, and climbed into the wagonette, he tried to climb into it to go with her; and the Baron von Habelschwert had to lift him down and hold him firmly.

The wagonette drove off amid a loud chorus of farewells; and little given to the softer emotions as Pollyooly was, there were tears in her eyes as she looked back on the friends she was leaving. Her last sight of the prince was somewhat depressing: in a final access of despair he was kicking the baron's shins.

Pollyooly said, with far more indulgence than she had generally shown him:

"I don't suppose he'll break out like that very often."

"Still, after all your training, it is sad to see him massacring his faithful mentor," said the Honourable John Ruffin.

"Yes: it isn't nice of him," said Pollyooly without any great annoyance in her tone. "But really it's the baron's fault; he'd only have to smack him about twice."

"I expect he has conscientious scruples against smacking princes of the blood royal. Many people undoubtedly have," said the Honourable John Ruffin.

"Perhaps he has. But I think he'll miss me," said Pollyooly in a tone of sufficient satisfaction.

The baron would indeed miss her; and he was one of the saddest men in Pyechurch that day. With the departure of Pollyooly his hours of ease came to an end. No longer could he in his sunnily disposed deck-chair read the sweet books he loved in a perfect serenity. Once more he must follow his royal charge up and down the sands and keep an ever watchful eye on him.

The change from Pyechurch to the Temple was trying; but the unrepining Pollyooly soon grew used to it, though she missed for a while the wide spaces of the sea and marsh, and the inspiriting breezes from the sea.

The Honourable John Ruffin made some changes: she was to continue to call him John, or Cousin John; she was to do her work in gloves; and she was always to wear a large apron. The use of a large apron, though it might prevent her from working with her wonted speed, was to enable her to wear under it always a nice linen frock. Then, when any one knocked at the door of the chambers, she could slip off the apron, and let them in no longer in the guise of the Honourable John Ruffin's housekeeper, but as a member of his family.

He did not for a moment dream of relieving her altogether of her housework. In the first place he could not afford to do so; in the second place he thought it very good for her to be busy most of the day, and to feel that she was independent, earning her own living. He did not even bid her give up her post of housekeeper to Mr. Gedge-Tomkins. He was quite sure that a girl might have too little work to do, but he was very doubtful whether she could have too much.

Then he was talking one afternoon to Pollyooly, who had just made his tea and brought it to him; and she said:

"Who is Mr. Francis?"

"Mr. Francis who?" said the Honourable John Ruffin.

"I don't know," said Pollyooly, knitting her brow. "It was Mrs. Brown who talked about him. I took the Lump to see her the day after we came back from Pyechurch; and she said I was growing quite the lady."

"She would put it like that," said the Honourable John Ruffin sadly.

"And then she said that after all it wasn't to be wondered at, seeing who Mr. Francis was. But when I asked her what she meant, she wouldn't say any more."

The Honourable John Ruffin sat straighter up in his chair with a somewhat startled air. But he said in an indifferent enough tone:

"Ah, she grew mysterious, did she?"

"Ever so mysterious," said Pollyooly.

"It's a habit of her class, I believe," said the Honourable John Ruffin carelessly. "Probably she meant nothing at all."

Pollyooly went back to the Lump content; but the Honourable John Ruffin kept his brow puckered by a thoughtful frown for some time after she had gone. Then he shrugged his shoulders, and his face resumed its wonted serenity.

Three afternoons later there was a knocking at the door of the chambers; and Pollyooly opened it to find the Duke of Osterley standing on the threshold. She was surprised, because she had no reason to believe that the coldness which the Honourable John Ruffin had told her subsisted between himself and the duke had been dissipated; but, like the well-mannered child she was, she did not let her surprise be seen, but bowed politely as she had seen ladies at Pyechurch bow, for since she had been promoted to the position of the Honourable John Ruffin's cousin she had abandoned the curtsey as out of keeping with that more exalted station.

The duke gazed gloomily at her, for it was very present to his mind that their earlier meetings had, for him, been barren of joy; then he said gloomily:

"Ah, you are here. Is Mr. Ruffin back from the Law Courts yet?"

"No, your Grace; but he won't be long. He'll be back to tea in a minute or two: the clock's just struck four," she said; and she drew aside for him to enter.

The duke stared at her angel face with gloomy thoughtfulness for nearly a minute. She found it somewhat discomfitting. Then he said gloomily:

"Very well: I'll come in and wait."

He walked with a determined air down the passage into the sitting-room.

Pollyooly ran up to the attic to assure herself that the Lump was not in mischief—it was the last thing in the world that placid, but red-headed cherub was likely to get into; none the less she was always making sure of it. Then she came down to the kitchen, and set about cutting thin bread and butter for two persons.

As she cut it she wondered uneasily what had brought the duke to the King's Bench Walk. If there was one person in the world with regard to whom she did not enjoy a clear conscience, it was the duke.

Had he come for the reason:

(1) That she had helped the duchess in the original evasion of his daughter?

(2) That she had spent a fortnight at Ricksborough Court as his daughter?

(3) Or had he discovered that she had helped the duchess in the second evasion of Lady Marion?

(4) Had Mr. Wilkinson revealed how she had tricked him and the detective?

Truly there were reasons why she should be afflicted by an uneasy conscience with regard to the duke. It was no wonder that his gloomy stare had made her uncomfortable. She tried to reassure herself by the consideration that if he had discovered anything, he would surely have been far grumpier with her; he would never have confined himself to a gloomy stare.

She had just finished cutting the bread and butter when the latchkey of the Honourable John Ruffin grated in the keyhole.

She stepped to the kitchen door; and as he entered she said:

"Please, sir, the duke's here."

The Honourable John Ruffin showed no surprise; he only said:

"Ah, he must be wanting me to do something for him. I told you that he would warm to me when he did."

"Yes, sir. But, please sir, he doesn't look very warm yet," said Pollyooly doubtfully.

"He never does. It runs in the family—the Osterley chill. Bring us some tea," said the Honourable John Ruffin lightly; and he went down the passage.

He came into the sitting-room briskly, and found the duke sitting in an easy chair, with his silk hat thrust well back on his head, in a fashion which gave him a far from ducal, an even raffish air.

"How are you, Ruffin?" he said, with an amiable smile, but in a somewhat nervous and deprecatory tone.

"How are you, Osterley? Got over the sulks?" said the Honourable John Ruffin lightly.

"Sulks? I never sulk!" said the duke with some heat.

"What do you call them then?" said the Honourable John Ruffin with a good display of the liveliest most unaffected interest.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" said the duke coldly; but he flushed.

It is likely that the Honourable John Ruffin would have raised him to a considerable temperature on this matter; but the entrance of Pollyooly, bearing the tea-tray, closed the discussion of it. The Honourable John Ruffin poured out the tea and handed the bread and butter to the duke.

They ate some bread and butter and drank some tea; and then the duke said plaintively:

"This is jolly good tea. Why don't I ever get tea like this?"

"You ought to. You pay enough for it," said the Honourable John Ruffin in a tone which lacked sympathy.

"I do. I believe I employ every incompetent jackass in London," said the duke bitterly.

"And I expect you don't make any secret of your conviction at home," said the Honourable John Ruffin.

"I don't," said the duke firmly; then yet more plaintively he added: "Oh, it's a dog's life for a man trying to run places like Ricksborough House and the court on his own!"

"I expect it does try you a bit too high," said the Honourable John Ruffin.

"It would any man," said the duke with conviction.

The Honourable John Ruffin thought that a man of tact and amiability could probably do it quite easily; but he did not say so. He thought that such a statement might be inhospitable. They went on with their tea in silence, the duke frowning over his luckless lot.

Then the Honourable John Ruffin said in a distinctly patient and long-suffering tone:

"Well, what is it you want me to do for you this time?"

"I don't want you to do anything for me!" said the duke sharply.

"Then what have you come for?" said the Honourable John Ruffin in the same distinctly patient and long-suffering tone.

The duke hesitated; then he said:

"Well, I want you to help me. I've got an idea."

The Honourable John Ruffin looked skeptical, indeed, and he said a little wearily:

"You have? What is it?"

The duke cleared his throat, assumed a portentous air, and said:

"I tell you I'm getting devilish sick of this business—living by myself, without any family, and that sort of thing. And I've come to the conclusion that it's time Caroline and I were reconciled—"

"High time," said the Honourable John Ruffin readily.

"I'm fond of Caroline—in a way—"

"Your own way—an obscure, secret way," said the Honourable John Ruffin in a cheerful tone.

The duke scowled at him, but went on: "You don't know how contrary Caroline is—"

"How should I? I'm not married to her," said the Honourable John Ruffin patiently.

"Well, she is. And I've been thinking that if she found she was getting her way without interference, she wouldn't want it any longer."

The keen grey eyes of the Honourable John Ruffin sparkled:

"By Jove! This is subtlety! Marriage makes Machiavellis of us all. Continue, Solomon," he said, with more respect in his tone.

"But I couldn't think of any way of letting her know she was getting it. It's no use writin' to those scoundrels of lawyers of hers and telling them. She'd only think it was a trap; or she'd think I'd caved in, and be so cockahoop we should never get any forrader. Then I got the idea. It looks a bit roundabout, but I believe it'll work, I do really. But it'll take a lot of working, and I'm wondering whether that little housekeeper of yours—what's her name—Mary Bride—will be up to it."

"What on earth has Pollyooly got to do with it?" cried the Honourable John Ruffin.

"A lot," said the duke firmly. "You know how like Marion she is. Why, even Mrs. Hutton, who'd been with Marion for years, couldn't tell them apart. Well, I want Mary Bride to be Marion."

"The deuce you do!" cried the Honourable John Ruffin.

"Yes," said the duke in the tone of a man who had quite made up his mind. "I want her to come and live at the court as Marion. I'm going to run her as my daughter, Lady Marion Ricksborough."

"But what on earth for?" cried the Honourable John Ruffin in a tone of the liveliest bewilderment.

"Why, don't you see? At first Caroline will be awfully cockahoop at getting her own way. Then she'll begin to see that Marion's out in the cold, and I've got another daughter in her place. Then she'll kick like fury. She'll send Marion back in a brace of shakes to take her proper place. Then it'll be my turn to kick. I shan't be taking any Marion—at least, not without Caroline comes back too," said the duke with an air of uncommon animation.

He was looking brighter than ever the Honourable John Ruffin had seen him. His eyes were positively gleaming with a manly fire.

"By Jove—by Jove!" said the Honourable John Ruffin softly.

"I thought you'd see it," said the duke complacently.

The Honourable John Ruffin rose from his chair, strode solemnly across the hearthrug, seized the duke's hand, wrung it, and in a voice trembling with emotion said:

"Osterley, I have done you an injustice. I have underrated your intellect. Under that mild and irritated appearance you hide genius—veritable genius. The idea is, as you say, roundabout, but it will work. It will certainly work. You are dealing with a woman."

The duke smiled with an air of the deepest self-satisfaction. Compliments from the Honourable John Ruffin were indeed rare.

"Yes; that's what I thought," he said. Then he chuckled, and added:

"Won't Caroline be mad when she finds I'm running another Marion?"

"'Mad' isn't the word for it," said the Honourable John Ruffin with conviction.

"I shall certainly be getting a little of my own back," said the duke, beaming.

The Honourable John Ruffin frowned at him heavily and said in a tone of the coldest severity:

"That's a stupid way of looking at it. The important thing about your idea is that it will very likely bring you together again. But I wonder if you can work it. You won't find it an easy job."

"It all depends on whether Mary Bride can take Marion's place," said the duke somewhat anxiously.

The Honourable John Ruffin looked at him queerly. It was not for him to say that Pollyooly had already spent a fortnight at Ricksborough Court as Lady Marion and that during that fortnight the duke had been as completely duped as his household.

He only said:

"It isn't Pollyooly I'm doubtful about. You need have no fears about her. She's by far the cleverest child I know, and she'll play her part all right. But, unfortunately, when you kidnapped her in Piccadilly and took her to Ricksborough House, your butler and Marion's nurse—what's her name?—Mrs. Hutton, learnt that Marion has a double, and they may suspect things."

"Oh, no: Lucas doesn't go to the court; and I discharged Mrs. Hutton for being an idiot. Also, I dismissed Miss Marlow, Marion's governess. I had no use for her. Really there's no one at the court now who came into close contact with Marion at all," said the duke.

"That does simplify things," said the Honourable John Ruffin cheerfully. "But of course it's going to be a matter of weeks. Caroline won't hear about it at once probably, for her friends won't hear about it to let her know. Then it'll take her some time to get over her satisfaction at having got her way, and to realise that Marion is out in the cold."

"Then she'll come back like a knife," said the duke.

"Yes; but Pollyooly has got to keep the game going for a good six weeks. Let's hear what she thinks about taking it on," said the Honourable John Ruffin, and he rang the bell.

"Of course she'll take it on. Besides having her at the court, I shall pay her a trifle," said the duke in a tone of complete assurance.

"You won't. You'll pay her at least five pounds a week," said the Honourable John Ruffin in an equally assured tone. "But even so, she may refuse to leave her little brother for so long."



CHAPTER XVIII

THE DUKE'S IDEA TAKES FORM

Pollyooly came quickly, but she came in some trepidation lest after all the duke might be going to scold her. A glance at his face reassured her: he was certainly not angry.

The Honourable John Ruffin said gravely:

"The duke wants you to do a piece of work for him, Pollyooly—a very well-paid piece of work."

At the words "well-paid" the duke started in his chair with a look of pain; but Pollyooly's deep blue eyes shone suddenly like bright stars, and she smiled a heavenly smile. It was not that she was mercenary. But it was the chief aim of her life to raise a wall of gold (it could not be too thick or too high) between the Lump and the workhouse.

"Yes?" she said a little breathlessly.

"He wants you to go down to his house in the country and pretend to be his little daughter, Lady Marion Ricksborough. You're exactly like her, and if you pretend properly, no one will know you're not her. Do you think you could do it?" said the Honourable John Ruffin briskly.

Pollyooly smiled again, and said confidently:

"Oh, yes. I'm sure I could."

"And the duke will pay you seven or eight pounds a week for six weeks—so that it will mean thirty-five or forty pounds," said the Honourable John Ruffin with the same business briskness.

Pollyooly smiled another heavenly smile, but the duke sprang to his feet with harried air and cried fiercely:

"Oh, hang it all! Draw it mild, Ruffin! Seven or eight pounds a week for a child like that! Oh, hang it! It's too stiff!"

"Not a bit of it!" said the Honourable John Ruffin with cold business incisiveness. "Pollyooly has the monopoly of the likeness of Marion, and she must be paid a monopoly price. Besides, this business has been costing you over a thousand a year; surely you can't kick at seven or eight pounds a week for six weeks, or so, to stop it for good and all. Why, as a monopoly price, seven or eight pounds a week isn't enough. We must make it ten—or, say, a hundred for the whole job."

"No, no; seven pounds a week!" cried the duke hastily.

The Honourable John Ruffin looked at him with an air of considerable disapproval, almost contemptuous, and said coldly:

"Well, you can't expect me to haggle—seven let it be."

He would have been very well content to get five pounds a week for Pollyooly; and she would have been overjoyed to get it. But he did not think it wise to show any pleasure at getting seven.

But during this discussion of terms Pollyooly's face had fallen; and its brightness was dimmed. Somewhat plaintively she said:

"But please, your Grace. If it's going to take six weeks what's to become of the Lump?"

"Yes: there's certainly the Lump to be considered," said the Honourable John Ruffin, frowning.

"I couldn't go away for six whole weeks and leave the Lump," said Pollyooly.

"And who, or what, is the Lump?" said the duke somewhat impatiently.

"The Lump's her little brother. She mothers him," explained the Honourable John Ruffin.

"Well, surely she can find some one to take charge of him for six weeks. I'm paying her enough," said the duke.

"Oh, no, your Grace. I couldn't let anybody but myself look after him for a whole six weeks. I couldn't really. I shouldn't feel that they would do it properly—all the time. I can't go away and leave him for six weeks," said Pollyooly; and it was plain enough that she was quite sincere in her aversion from doing so.

Indeed she spoke in a tone of unshakable resolution; and the Honourable John Ruffin and the duke gazed at one another nonplussed. Pollyooly gazed at the Honourable John Ruffin with expectant eyes; she had a great belief in his powers. But he only frowned, pondering; and the duke scratched his head.

Then she said in a tone of faint hopefulness:

"But couldn't I take the Lump with me?"

"That's a solution," said the Honourable John Ruffin quickly.

"Oh, hang it! I couldn't turn up with two children. It would upset the apple-cart," the duke protested.

The face of the Honourable John Ruffin grew clear; and he said firmly:

"It looks the only solution; and after all why shouldn't you adopt the Lump? People do adopt children."

"Not dukes," said the duke coldly.

"Oh, if you break the ice, I expect they'll adopt them by the dozen," said the Honourable John Ruffin cheerfully. "There isn't any real reason why you shouldn't. You have this new and very proper desire to become thoroughly domesticated. The Lump is one of the very people to gratify it. Besides, it will give the people at the court something to talk about, and take their minds off Pollyooly."

"I should jolly well think it would!" growled the duke.

"Well, it's the only thing to do," said the Honourable John Ruffin.

"Do you think so?" said the duke doubtfully; and he blinked.

"I'm sure of it," said the Honourable John Ruffin confidently. "You can't have Pollyooly without the Lump."

The duke shook his head, turned to Pollyooly, and said:

"I tell you what: I'll make it eight pounds a week, if you'll come alone."

Pollyooly shook her head and said sadly:

"I couldn't, your Grace. I couldn't really."

It looked indeed like a blind alley; but in the end the duke yielded. His heart was set on carrying through this scheme for regaining his duchess. His mind was so rarely guilty of ingenuity that he could not bear to discourage it. They set themselves, therefore, to making the presence of the Lump at Ricksborough Court plausible. Fortunately he was too young to spoil their plan by indiscreet babble, had he been a babbling child. To the minds of the servants at Ricksborough Court, minds so carefully trained in the board schools of England, his pregnant grunts would convey no meaning.

Then arose the question of a becoming outfit; and into this matter the Honourable John Ruffin threw himself with enthusiasm. He saw his way to remove the burden of new summer clothes for herself and the Lump from Pollyooly's slender resources for several years.

More than once the duke protested that he was not taking the children to live at the court for the rest of the century; and when the Honourable John Ruffin thoughtfully tried to edge in a few winter vests, he protested hotly that he was not fitting out an expedition to discover the North Pole, or the South.

His warm opposition only excited the combative instinct of the Honourable John Ruffin. Coldly he urged the well-known inclemency of the English summer; surely the duke did not wish to have two pneumonic children on his hands; and the vests slipped into the outfit.

The duke was resolved to give the affair the strongest possible air of verisimilitude; and he engaged a governess, a Miss Belthrop, for Pollyooly. That led to his engaging a nurse, Emily Gibbs, for the Lump, though Pollyooly protested that it was quite unnecessary.

The duke was indeed falling more and more deeply in love with his scheme the nearer it came to putting it into effect. On three afternoons he came to coach Pollyooly in the topography of Ricksborough Court and its gardens, and in the habits of Lady Marion Ricksborough. He was astonished and impressed by her intelligence. He was called on to tell her hardly a single thing twice. He spoke of it to the Honourable John Ruffin with great respect.

Then on the tenth day after his first visit he came in a taxicab, greatly excited, for them and their luggage, and drove them to Waterloo Station. On the platform they found Emily Gibbs, in charge of Lawrence, the duke's valet, awaiting them. She found favour in the exigent eyes of Pollyooly, who let her take charge of the Lump without a single anxious qualm. Emily Gibbs fell in love with him at first sight.

Pollyooly, though all the while she kept a careful eye on him, left him in the care of Emily Gibbs, till the train was actually outside London. Then she took him into her corner and pointed out objects of interest to him. She was convinced that he had made a great advance in intelligence since his journey down to Pyechurch: not once did he hail a sheep as a gee-gee. She promoted him to the use of his proper Christian name, and called him Roger. The duke had grown calm once more, and read a four-penny-half-penny magazine with every appearance of absorbed interest.

In the motor car which carried them from Ricksborough station to the court, Pollyooly insisted on having the Lump on her knee. Motor drives did not come their way so often that she could bear to be parted from him in an hour of such delight.

Once out of the peaceful seclusion of the railway carriage the duke's excitement had returned; and now that the real ordeal was at hand, he had grown uncommonly nervous. It may be that he was unused to deceit. He had set Emily Gibbs beside the chauffeur that he might have Pollyooly to himself; and all the way he poured jumbled instructions into her ear in a fashion which would have brought her to the court hopelessly confused had she been paying much attention to him. As she followed him up the steps of the court she fancied that he was even shaky on his legs.

Rawlings, the butler, greeted them with a cold and dignified civility which showed him thoroughly aware of his own value. Also there was a lack of geniality in his tone which showed that he did not greatly love the duke; and the one smile he lavished on Pollyooly was stiff and wooden. But she certainly passed his careless scrutiny.

Then, they had gone but a few steps into the hall when a slim and serpentine dachshund trotted forward to greet them. It avoided the duke and sniffed at Pollyooly. Then it uttered a yelp of joy, and began to dance round her. At the yelp, four more small dogs hurried down the hall, and flung themselves on Pollyooly with every sign of the warmest affection.

The duke gasped and blinked, suddenly assumed a Machiavellian air, and said, for the benefit of the butler and footman, in a high, unnatural voice:

"Well, at any rate, the dogs haven't forgotten you, Marion."

"No, papa," said Pollyooly with an angel smile.



CHAPTER XIX

POLLYOOLY IS INTRODUCED TO THE COUNTY

He had never done it before, but to-day, to the surprise of his butler, the duke accompanied his supposed daughter up the stairs to Lady Marion Ricksborough's suite of rooms. His face was flushed; and he stumbled twice. His mind was full of the strange behaviour of the serpentine dachshund and the other dogs.

When they had risen above the range of hearing of the butler and footmen in the hall, he said somewhat breathlessly:

"I was never so flabbergasted in my life. Fancy dogs taking to you like that! When I saw Hildegarde, who is one of the most particular dogs I ever came across, dancing round you like that, you could have knocked me down with a feather."

"Yes: it is funny," said Pollyooly; and she smiled.

"But what a blessing it is!" the duke went on quickly. "It will be all over the place that the dogs recognised you; and after that it's no good whatever any one's saying that you're not Marion. It settles it—absolutely."