Bobby didn’t like her name ‘Roberta’ at all. What a name! At home and in school she had insisted that everyone called her ‘Bobby’. This continued even now when she was eighteen years old. It was a terrible nuisance, because Bobby was the daughter of the Duke and the Duchess of Bening Worth.
Whenever they had to introduce her to someone, she would say her name was Bobby! Her parents were often very embarrassed. She could be found climbing up trees in the orchard, or chasing the ducks in the pond, often jumping in to swim with them. Last evening, she had come in for dinner looking a mess. She had been playing with the puppies in the garden.
One evening, her mother told her that the royal Duke and Duchess of Humming were coming for dinner.
“I hope you will behave properly, my dear,” said her worried mother, “I want you to dress well too. Not in those dirty clothes that you always wear! I have laid out a dress for you and expect you to be polite and nice to the guests.”
Bobby found a beautiful peach-coloured dress laid out on her bed and satin slippers to match them. There was a pearl necklace too! She looked at herself in the mirror and found that her face and hands and feet were all rather grubby. Her hair was tangled, with leaves and twigs sticking out!
Bobby quickly had a wash and then she put on the dress, with the shoes on and finally the pearl necklace. Just then her mother came in and brushed her hair and put a small jewelled clip on it. When Bobby looked into the mirror, she was startled.
“Is this me–Bobby?” she asked her mother who smiled back at her in the mirror.
“Come along now,” said the Duchess, and she led Bobby down to the drawing room. The Duke was also pleasantly surprised to see how pretty Bobby looked.
Soon their guests arrived. With them came a handsome young man, Prince Philip. “He is the son of my sister, the Queen,” introduced the Duchess of Humming.
The Prince enjoyed meeting everyone and was soon chatting with Bobby. At dinner they continued to laugh and talk, and Bobby found she liked the Prince as much as he liked her.
The Duchesses smiled at each other and decided that there would be a wedding in the family. And that was exactly what happened. The Prince married Bobby but everyone called her Princess Bobby!
