"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 present