"Oh, you're king, are you, Ralph?" said the gentleman. Then he said again: "Come over to me, little queen, and let me introduce you to the king." Never was anyone less shy than the school baby, and never, perhaps, was anyone more fickle. She scrambled immediately off Robina's knee and, pushing aside her companions, went up to the boy and took his hand. "Tiss I--king; won't oo?" she said, and she raised her little cherubic mouth to the small boy. The boy, who was no more shy than Curly Pate herself, stooped, kissed her, and said: "Oh, you little darling!" Curly Pate gave her fat hand to his Majesty, and the king and queen trotted off together. "Does oo 'ike fairies, and butterflies and flowers?" the queen was heard to say as she conducted His Majesty round the garden. The girls all looked after them with pleasure, and the gentleman said to Mrs Burton: "Then I shall have no fear whatever. I see he is happy already, and I know all you girls will treat my little man kindly." "Of course we will," said Robina, taking the lead in that way which nearly drove poor Harriet mad. "Is he going to stay here? What a perfect little darling he is!" "He is going to stay from now until the end of the term," said the gentleman; "then I am coming back for him, and I am going to give a prize to the girl whom he himself likes best." "Oh! then, of course, that will be Curly Pate," said Robina, still smiling and looking very interesting and absolutely out of the common. "Curly Pate won't count," said the gentleman. "The prize is to be given by Mrs Burton's permission to a girl in the third form. Who are the girls in the third form, if I may venture to ask, my dear madam?" The gentleman had a most courteous way; his manners were so nice, and his voice so--perhaps harmonious is the right word, that he might almost have been a king himself. "Girls of the third form," said Mrs Burton in reply, "come and stand over here, will you?" At the word of command, Frederica and Patience Chetwold, the three Amberleys, Harriet and Jane, and last, but by no means least, Robina Starling, stood in a long row before the strange gentleman and Mrs Burton.