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 Fräulein 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.