"You--you--hate her!" "Why, I've never set eyes on her!" cried the duke.
"Oh, yes: you do--and it's--it's beastly," sobbed Pollyooly.
No duke likes to hear his conduct described as beastly by an angel child--especially when the description happens to be accurate--and the duke ground his teeth.
Pollyooly, watching him, sobbed on--louder.
The duke gazed at her in a dismal discomfort.

He shuffled his feet till the shuffle was almost a dance.

Then he said in a feebly soothing tone: "There--there--that'll do." [Illustration: The Duke gazed at her in dismal discomfort] Pollyooly's sobs grew yet louder--heartrending.
The duke took a hurried turn up and down the room.
Pollyooly, a huddled figure of desperate woe, sobbed on.
The duke grabbed at his scrubby little moustache and held on to it firmly.

It was no real help.
He ground his teeth; he tugged at his moustache; and then in a tone of the last exasperation, he cried: "Oh, hang it all! Stop that infernal howling; and I'll give you the nomination!" Pollyooly softened her sobs a little; the duke flung himself down into the chair before the writing-table, at the other end of the room, and seized pen and paper.
"What's the brat's name ?" he growled.
"Millicent--Saunders," sobbed Pollyooly.
The duke wrote the nomination, put it in an envelope, addressed it to the secretary of the Bellingham Home, licked the flap of the envelope with wolfish ferocity, and banged it fast.
He came hastily across the room with it to Pollyooly, held it out, and said with even greater ferocity: "Here you are--and--and--much good may it do her!" Pollyooly rose quickly and took it.

She could hardly believe her shining eyes.
"Oh, thank you, your Grace! Millicent will be so glad!" she cried joyfully.
The duke growled in his throat; but in some way Pollyooly's radiant angel face blunted his ferocity.