“Upon my word!” said Polly. “You are very cool, ain’t you?”
However, Polly seemed to think it a good idea, and added: “I suppose I must give you a kiss, though you ARE cool.”
The kiss given and taken, they sat down to breakfast in a highly conversational tone.
“Of course, you are going to amuse me?” said Polly.
“Oh, of course!” said Barbox Brothers.
In the pleasurable height of her anticipations, Polly found it indispensable to put down her piece of toast, cross one of her little fat knees over the other, and bring her little fat right hand down into her left hand with a business- like slap. After this gathering of herself together, Polly, by that time a mere heap of dimples, asked in a wheedling manner:
“What are we going to do, you dear old thing?”
“Why, I was thinking,” said Barbox Brothers, “—but are you fond of horses, Polly?”
“Ponies, I am,” said Polly, “especially when their tails are long. But horses—n-no—too big, you know.”
“Well,” pursued Barbox Brothers, in a spirit of grave mysterious confidence adapted to the importance of the consultation, “I did see yesterday, Polly, on the walls, pictures of two long-tailed ponies, speckled all over—”
“No, no, NO!” cried Polly, in an ecstatic desire to linger on the charming details. “Not speckled all over!”
“Speckled all over. Which ponies jump through hoops—”
“No, no, NO!” cried Polly as before. “They never jump through hoops!”
“Yes, they do. Oh, I assure you they do! And eat pie in pinafores-
-“
“Ponies eating pie in pinafores!” said Polly. “What a story-teller you are, ain’t you?”
“Upon my honour.—And fire off guns.”
(Polly hardly seemed to see the force of the ponies resorting to fire-arms.)
“And I was thinking,” pursued the exemplary Barbox, “that if you and I were to go to the Circus where these ponies are, it would do our constitutions good.”
“Does that mean amuse us?” inquired Polly. “What long words you do use, don’t you?”
Apologetic for having wandered out of his depth, he replied:
“That means amuse us. That is exactly what it means. There are many other wonders besides the ponies, and we shall see them all. Ladies and gentlemen in spangled dresses, and elephants and lions and tigers.”
Polly became observant of the teapot, with a curled-up nose indicating some uneasiness of mind.
“They never get out, of course,” she remarked as a mere truism.
“The elephants and lions and tigers? Oh, dear no!”
“Oh, dear no!” said Polly. “And of course nobody’s afraid of the ponies shooting anybody.”
“Not the least in the world.”
“No, no, not the least in the world,” said Polly.
“I was also thinking,” proceeded Barbox, “that if we were to look in at the toy-shop, to choose a doll—”
“Not dressed!” cried Polly with a clap of her hands. “No, no, NO, not dressed!”
“Full-dressed. Together with a house, and all things necessary for housekeeping—”
Polly gave a little scream, and seemed in danger of falling into a swoon of bliss.
“What a darling you are!” she languidly exclaimed, leaning back in her chair. “Come and be hugged, or I must come and hug you.”
This resplendent programme was carried into execution with the utmost rigour of the law. It being essential to make the purchase of the doll its first feature—or that lady would have lost the ponies—the toy-shop expedition took precedence. Polly in the magic warehouse, with a doll as large as herself under each arm, and a neat assortment of some twenty more on view upon the counter, did indeed present a spectacle of indecision not quite compatible with unalloyed happiness, but the light cloud passed. The lovely specimen oftenest chosen, oftenest rejected, and finally abided by, was of Circassian descent, possessing as much boldness of beauty as was reconcilable with extreme feebleness of mouth, and combining a sky-blue silk pelisse with rose-coloured satin trousers, and a black velvet hat: which this fair stranger to our northern shores would seem to have founded on the portraits of the late Duchess of Kent. The name this distinguished foreigner brought with her from beneath the glowing skies of a sunny clime was (on Polly’s authority) Miss Melluka, and the costly nature of her outfit as a housekeeper, from the Barbox coffers, may be inferred from the two facts that her silver tea-spoons were as large as her kitchen poker, and that the proportions of her watch exceeded those of her frying-pan. Miss Melluka was graciously pleased to express her entire approbation of the Circus, and so was Polly; for the ponies were speckled, and brought down nobody when they fired, and the savagery of the wild beasts appeared to be mere smoke—which article, in fact, they did produce in large quantities from their insides. The Barbox absorption in the general subject throughout the realisation of these delights was again a sight to see, nor was it less worthy to behold at dinner, when he drank to Miss Melluka, tied stiff in a chair opposite to Polly (the fair Circassian possessing an unbendable spine), and even induced the waiter to assist in carrying out with due decorum the prevailing glorious idea. To wind up, there came the agreeable fever of getting Miss Melluka and all her wardrobe and rich possessions into a fly with Polly, to be taken home. But, by that time, Polly had become unable to look upon such accumulated joys with waking eyes, and had withdrawn her consciousness into the wonderful Paradise of a child’s sleep. “Sleep, Polly, sleep,” said Barbox Brothers, as her head dropped on his shoulder; “you shall not fall out of this bed easily, at any rate!”
What rustling piece of paper he took from his pocket, and carefully folded into the bosom of Polly’s frock, shall
