The prince, in truth, followed Pollyooly about; and what he followed her about like was a dog.

He did not indeed spring to do her bidding, for he was not built to spring; but it was plain that if he could have sprung he would.
Perhaps the most remarkable fact about him was the improvement in his spirits: he was losing his air of gloomy savagery; often he smiled--at a dish which took his fancy, and on setting out for the sands to join Pollyooly.

At times, when he had performed some small feat, clumsily indeed, but not with a quite incredible clumsiness, he would turn to her a triumphant, but appealing, eye which begged for a word, or a smile of approval.

The humane Pollyooly rarely failed to give him that word or smile to brace him to fresh efforts.

With other little girls he had come to be civil but uninterested; and little boys he ignored.
There are minds to whom it would have occurred that there were other seaside resorts equally healthy with Pyechurch to one of which the young prince might be removed to save him from the social degradation of playing with children who were neither high, nor well-born.