ression.

"But I am not quite ancient enough to be your Papa," replied the Prince,
"so you need not name us together like that."

"_Aren't_ you?" I asked, with big eyes.

"Well, that depends on how old you are, my dear."

"I'm too old for you to call your dear, unless you _are_ old enough to
be my Papa," was the sage retort of Baby Beechy.

"I'm over thirty," said the Prince.

"Yes, I know," said I. "I found the Almanach de Gotha on the table of
our hotel at Cap Martin, and you were in it."

"Naturally," said the Prince, but he got rather red, as people always do
when they find out that you know just how far over thirty they've really
gone. "But I'm not married," he went on, "therefore you cannot think of
me as of your papa."

"I don't think of you much as anything," said I. "I'm too busy."

"Too busy! Doing what?"

"Playing dolls," I explained.

"I wish you were a little older," said the Prince, with a good imitation
of a sigh. "Ah, _why_ haven't you a few years more?"

"You might ask Mamma," I replied. "But then, if I had, _she_ would have
more too wouldn't she?"

"That would be a pity. She is charming as she is. She must have married
when almost a child."

"Did you come out here at this time of the morning to ask me about
Mamma's marriage?" I threw at him. "Because, if _that_ was your reason,
I'd rather go in to my dolls."

"No, no," protested the Prince, in a hurry. "I came to talk about
yourself."

I began to feel an attack of giggles coming on, but I stopped them by
holding my breath, as you do for hiccoughs, and thinking about Job,
which, if you can do it soon and solemnly enough, is quite a good
preventive. I knew now exactly why Prince Dalmar-Kalm had dashed on his
clothes at sight of me and come into the garden on an empty stomach. He
had thought, if he could get me all alone for half an hour (which he'd
often tried to do and never succeeded) he could find out a lot of things
that he would like to know. Perhaps he felt it was impossible for
anybody to be as young as I seem, so that was what he wanted to find out
about first. If I _wasn't_, he would flirt; if I _was_, he would merely
pump.

There wasn't much time to decide on a "course of action," as Mamma's
lawyer in Denver says; but I put on my thinking-cap and tied it tight
under my chin for a minute. "There's more fun to be had in playing with
him than with dolls," I said to myself, "if I set about it in the right
way. But what _is_ t