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 not very clever, for a princess, she always tried to do her lessons. even if you know perfectly well that you can't do your lessons, you may as well try, and sometimes you find that by some fortunate accident they really are done. then the princess had a truly good heart: she was always kind to her pets. she never slapped her hippopotamus when it broke her dolls in its playful gambols, and she never forgot to feed her rhinoceroses in their little hutch in the backyard. her elephant was devoted to her, and sometimes mary ann made her nurse quite cross by smuggling the dear little thing up to bed with her and letting it go to sleep with its long trunk laid lovingly across her throat, and its pretty head cuddled under the royal right ear.