II MAX A STOWAWAY 220

PRINCESS POLLY AT PLAY

CHAPTER I

POLLY, ROSE AND GWEN

A Summer at Cliffmore!

Princess Polly and Rose Atherton could think of little else.

It was true that Avondale was a charming place in which to live, and
there were pleasant schoolmates and merry times when Winter came.
There were fine lawns and beautiful flowers everywhere, but Polly and
Rose loved the shore, and surely the salt air was delightful, and the
beach a lovely place on which to romp. There was Captain Seaford,
whose little daughter, Sprite, had spent the winter at Avondale, and
a pleasant little playmate and classmate she had been.

She had returned to her home at Cliffmore, and now was counting the
days when Princess Polly and Rose would arrive, and every morning she
would stand in the doorway of her home on the beach, and look in the
direction in which Avondale lay.

It happened one morning that at the same moment that Sprite opened the
door to look out, Princess Polly and Rose were talking of her. They,
too, were out in the sunshine.

"How pretty Sprite looked last Summer when she played that she was a
little mermaid, and lay on the rocks looking down into the water, her
long yellow hair hanging down over her shoulders," Polly said.

"And the day that she invited me over to her house," said Rose, "her
dress was light green, and she wore a string of coral around her neck.
I thought she looked sweet then."

"How we did enjoy her house! We never saw one like it. It was a ship's
hulk, turned upside down, and divided up into rooms. Oh, but it was
cosey!" Polly said.

"And it won't be long before we'll be there at the shore, playing with
Sprite just as we did last Summer," said Rose.

A long time they stood talking. There were such delightful memories of
Cliffmore, and so many pleasures to anticipate. There would be sailing
trips on the "Dolphin," the yacht belonging to Captain Atherton, and
Captain Atherton himself had hinted at some sort of merry-making that
would occur at his fine home on the shore.

"Uncle John doesn't say whether it is to be a party, or what it will
be, but when I asked him if it would be fine, he took me on his knee,
and he said:

"'Rose, little Rose, it will be the brightest, the happiest event that
I ever attended,' so I guess it will be fine, for Uncle John always
means what he says," Rose concluded.

"Oh, we can't help wondering what it w