er
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 chie