II: Uncle James, or The Purple StrangerThe Princess and the gardener's boy were playing in the backyard.
"What will you do when you grow up, Princess?" asked the gardener's boy.
"I should like to marry you, Tom," said the Princess. "Would you mind?"
"No," said the gardener's boy. "I shouldn't mind much. I'll marry you if you like—if I have time."
For the gardener's boy meant, as soon as he was grown up, to be a general and a poet and a Prime Minister and an admiral and a civil engineer. Meanwhile, he was top of all his classes at school, and tip-top of the geography class.
As for the Princess Mary Ann, she was a very good little girl, and everyone loved her. She was always kind and polite, even to her Uncle James and to other people whom she did not like very much; and though she was
