Edgar examined her in the strong light mischievously. "Turn your profile," he said. "That's right; now, do you know, I rather like your nose, and it's a very valuable index to your disposition. I don't know whether, if it were removed from your face, it would mean so much; but taken in connection with its surroundings, it's a very expressive feature; it warns the stranger to be careful. In fact, most of your features are danger signals, Polly; I 'm rather glad I 've been taking a course of popular medical lectures on First Aid to the Injured!"

And so, with a great deal of nonsense and a good sprinkling of quiet, friendly chat, they made their way to Professor Salazar's house, proffered Polly's apologies, and took the train for San Francisco.



CHAPTER VII.

"WHERE IGNORANCE IS BLISS."

The trip from Berkeley to San Francisco was a brilliant success from Edgar's standpoint, but Polly would have told you that she never worked harder in her life.

"I 'll just say 'How do you do?' to your mother, and then be off," said Edgar, as they neared the house.

"Oh, but you surely will stay to dinner with us!" said Polly, with the most innocent look of disappointment on her face,—a look of such obvious grief that a person of any feeling could hardly help wishing to remove it, if possible. "You see, Edgar" (putting the latch-key in the door), "mamma is so languid and ill that she cannot indulge in many pleasures, and I had quite counted on you to amuse her a little for me this evening. But come up, and you shall do as you like after dinner."

"I 've brought you a charming surprise, mamacita!" called Polly from the stairs: "an old friend whom I picked up in the woods like a wild-flower and brought home to you." ("Wild-flower is a good name for him," she thought.)

Mrs. Oliver was delighted to see Edgar, but after the first greetings were over, Polly fancied that she had not closed the front door, and Edgar offered to go down and make sure.

In a second Polly crossed the room to her mother's side, and whispered impressively, "Edgar must be kept here until after midnight; I have good reasons that I will explain when we are alone. Keep him somehow,—anyhow!"

Mrs. Oliver had not lived sixteen years with Polly without learning to leap to conclusions. "Run down and ask Mrs. Howe if she will let us have her hall-bedroom tonight," she replied; "nod your head for yes when you come back, and I 'll act accordingly; I have a request to make of Edgar, and am glad to have so early an opportunity of talking with him."

"We did close the door, after all," said Edgar, coming in again. "What a pretty little apartment you have here! I have n't seen anything so cosy and homelike for ages."

"Then make yourself at home in it," said Mrs. Oliver, while Polly joined in with, "Is n't that a pretty fire in the grate? I 'll give you one rose-colored lamp with your firelight. Here, mamacita, is the rocker for you on one side; here, Edgar, is our one 'man's chair' for you on the other. Stretch out your feet as lazily as you like on my new goatskin rug. You are our only home-friend in San Francisco; and oh, how mamma will spoil you whenever she has the chance! Now talk to each other cosily while the 'angel of the house' cooks dinner."

It may be mentioned here that as Mrs. Chadwick's monthly remittances varied from sixty to seventy-five dollars, but never reached the promised eighty-five, Polly had dismissed little Yung Lee for a month, two weeks of which would be the Christmas vacation, and hoped in this way to make up deficiencies. The sugar-bowl and ginger-jar were stuffed copiously with notes of hand signed "Cigar-box," but held a painfully small amount of cash.

"Can't I go out and help Polly?" asked Edgar, a little later. "I should never have agreed to stay and dine if I had known that she was the cook."

"Go out, by all means; but you need n't be anxious. Ours is a sort of doll-house-keeping. We buy everything cooked, as far as possible, and Polly makes play of the rest. It all seems so simple and interesting to plan for two when we have been used to twelve and fourteen."

"May I come in?" called Edgar from the tiny dining-room to Polly, who had laid aside her Sunday finery and was clad in brown Scotch gingham mostly covered with ruffled apron.

"Yes, if you like; but you won't be spoiled here, so don't hope it. Mamma and I are two very different persons. Tie that apron round your waist; I 've just begun the salad-dressing; is your intelligence equal to stirring it round and round and pouring in oil drop by drop, while I take up the dinner?"

"Fully. Just try me. I 'll make it stand on its head in three minutes!"

Meanwhile Polly set on the table a platter of lamb-chops, some delicate potato chips which had come out of a pasteboard box, a dish of canned French peas, and a mound of currant-jelly.

"That is good," she remarked critically, coming back to her apprentice, who was toiling with most unnecessary vigor, so that the veins stood out boldly on his forehead. "You're really not stupid, for a boy; and you have n't 'made a mess,' which is more than I hoped. Now, please pour the dressing over those sliced tomatoes; set them on the side-table in the banquet-hall; put the plate in the sink (don't stare at me!); open a bottle of Apollinaris for mamma,—dig out the cork with a hairpin, I 've lost the corkscrew; move three chairs up to the dining-table (oh, it's so charming to have three!); light the silver candlesticks in the centre of the table; go in and bring mamma out in style; see if the fire needs coal; and I'll be ready by that time."

"I can never remember, but I fly! Oh, what an excellent slave-driver was spoiled in you!" said Edgar.

The simple dinner was delicious, and such a welcome change from the long boarding-house table at which Edgar had eaten for over a year. The candles gave a soft light; there was a bowl of yellow flowers underneath them. Mrs. Oliver looked like an elderly Dresden-china shepherdess in her pale blue wrapper, and Polly did n't suffer from the brown gingham, with its wide collar and cuffs of buff embroidery, and its quaint full sleeves. She had burned two small blisters on her wrist: they were scarcely visible to the naked eye, but she succeeded in obtaining as much sympathy for them as if they had been mortal wounds. Her mother murmured 'Poor darling wrist' and 'kissed the place to make it well.' Edgar found a bit of thin cambric and bound up the injured member with cooling flour, Mistress Polly looking demurely on, thinking meanwhile how much safer he was with them than with the objectionable Tony. After the lamb-chops and peas had been discussed, Edgar insisted on changing the plates and putting on the tomato salad; then Polly officiated at the next course, bringing in coffee, sliced oranges, and delicious cake from the neighboring confectioner's.

"Can't I wash the dishes?" asked Edgar, when the feast was ended.

"They are not going to be washed, at least by us. This is a great occasion, and the little girl downstairs is coming up to clear away the dinner things."

Then there was the pleasant parlor again, and when the candles were lighted in the old-fashioned mirror over the fireplace, everything wore a festive appearance. The guitar was brought out, and Edgar sang college songs till Mrs. Oliver grew so bright that she even hummed a faint second from her cosy place on the sofa.

And then Polly must show Edgar how she had made Austin Dobson's "Milkmaid Song" fit "Nelly Ely," and she must teach him the pretty words.

"Across the grass, I saw her pass, She comes with tripping pace; A maid I know, And March winds blow Her hair across her face. Hey! Dolly! Ho! Dolly! Dolly shall be mine, Before the spray is white with May Or blooms the eglantine."

By this time the bandage had come off the burned wrist, and Edgar must bind it on again, and Polly shrieked and started when he pinned the end over, and Edgar turned pale at the thought of his brutal awkwardness, and Polly burst into a ringing peal of laughter and confessed that the pin had n't touched her, and Edgar called her a deceitful little wretch. This naturally occupied some time, and then there was the second verse:—

"The March winds blow, I watch her go, Her eye is blue and clear; Her cheek is brown And soft as down To those who see it near. Hey! Dolly! Ho! Dolly! Dolly shall be mine, Before the spray is white with May Or blooms the eglantine."

After this singing-lesson was over it was nearly eleven o'clock, but up to this time Edgar had shown no realizing sense of his engagements.

"The dinner is over, and the theatre party is safe," thought Polly. "Now comes the 'tug of war,' that mysterious game of billiards."

But Mrs. Oliver was equal to the occasion. When Edgar looked at his watch, she said: "Polly, run and get Mrs. Noble's last letter, dear;" and then, when she was alone with Edgar, "My dear boy, I have a favor to ask of you, and you must be quite frank if it is not convenient for you to grant it. As to-morrow will be Saturday, perhaps you have no recitations, and if not, would it trouble you too much to stay here all night and attend to something for me in the morning? I will explain the matter, and then you can answer me more decidedly. I have received a letter from a Washington friend who seems to think it possible that a pension may be granted to me. He sends a letter of introduction to General M———, at the Presidio, who, he says, knew Colonel Oliver, and will be able to advise me in the matter. I am not well enough to go there for some days, and of course I do not like to send Polly alone. If you could go out with her, give him the letter of introduction, and ask him kindly to call upon us at his leisure, and find out also if there is any danger in a little delay just now while I am ill, it would be a very great favor."

"Of course I will, with all the pleasure in life, Mrs. Oliver," replied Edgar, with the unspoken thought, "Confound it! There goes my game; I promised the fellows to be there, and they 'll guy me for staying away! However, there 's nothing else to do. I should n't have the face to go out now and come in at one or two o'clock in the morning."

Polly entered just then with the letter.

"Edgar is kind enough to stay all night with us, dear, and take you to the Presidio on the pension business in the morning. If you will see that his room is all right, I will say good-night now. Our guest-chamber is downstairs, Edgar; I hope you will be very comfortable. Breakfast at half past eight, please."

When the door of Mrs. Howe's bedroom closed on Edgar, Polly ran upstairs, and sank exhausted on her own bed.

"Now, mamma, 'listen to my tale of woe!' I got off at the wrong station,—yes, it was stupid; but wait: perhaps I was led to be stupid. I lost my way, could n't find Professor Salazar's house, could n't find anything else. As I was wandering about in a woodsy road, trying to find a house of some kind, I heard a crowd of boys singing vociferously as they came through the trees. I did n 't care to meet them, all alone as I was, though of course there was nothing to be afraid of, so I stepped off the road behind some trees and bushes until they should pass. It turned out to be half a dozen university students, and at first I did n't know that Edgar was among them. They were teasing somebody to go over to San Francisco for a dinner, then to the minstrels, and then to wind up with a game of billiards, and other gayeties which were to be prolonged indefinitely. What dreadful things may have been included I don't know. A wretch named 'Tony' did most of the teasing, and he looked equal to planning any sort of mischief. All at once I thought I recognized a familiar voice. I peeped out, and sure enough it was Edgar Noble whom they were coaxing. He did n't want to go a bit,—I 'll say that for him,—but they were determined that he should. I didn't mind his going to dinners and minstrels, of course, but when they spoke of being out until after midnight, or to-morrow morning, and when one beetle-browed, vulgar-looking creature offered to lend him a 'tenner,' I thought of the mortgage on the Noble ranch, and the trouble there would be if Edgar should get into debt, and I felt I must do something to stop him, especially as he said himself that everything depended on his next examinations."

"But how did you accomplish it?" asked Mrs. Oliver, sitting up in bed and glowing with interest.

"They sat down by the roadside, smoking and talking it over. There was n't another well-born, well-bred looking young man in the group. Edgar seemed a prince among them, and I was so ashamed of him for having such friends! I was afraid they would stay there until dark, but they finally got up and walked toward the station. I waited a few moments, went softly along behind them, and when I was near enough I cleared my throat (oh, it was a fearful moment!), and said, 'I beg your pardon, but can you direct me to Professor Salazar's house?' and then in a dramatic tone, 'Why, it is—is n't it?—Edgar Noble of Santa Barbara!' He joined me, of course. Oh, I can't begin to tell you all the steps of the affair, I am so exhausted. Suffice it to say that he walked to Professor Salazar's with me to make my excuses, came over to town with me, came up to the house, I trembling for fear he would slip through my fingers at any moment; then, you know, he stayed to dinner, I in terror all the time as the fatal hours approached and departed; and there he is, 'the captive of my bow and spear,' tucked up in Mrs. Howe's best bed, thanks to your ingenuity! I could never have devised that last plot, mamma; it was a masterpiece!"

"You did a kind deed, little daughter," said Mrs. Oliver, with a kiss. "But poor Mrs. Noble! What can we do for her? We cannot play policemen all the time. We are too far from Edgar to know his plans, and any interference of which he is conscious would be worse than nothing. I cannot believe that he is far wrong yet. He certainly never appeared better; so polite and thoughtful and friendly. Well, we must let the morrow bring counsel."

"I hope that smirking, odious Tony is disappointed!" said Polly viciously, as she turned out the gas. "I distinctly heard him tell Edgar to throw a handkerchief over my hair if we should pass any wild cattle! How I 'd like to banish him from this vicinity! Invite Edgar to dinner next week, mamma; not too soon, or he will suspect missionary work. Boys hate to be missionaried, and I 'm sure I don't blame them. I hope he is happy downstairs in his little prison! He ought to be, if ignorance is bliss!"



CHAPTER VIII.

TWO FIRESIDE CHATS.

It was five o'clock Saturday afternoon, and Edgar Noble stood on the Olivers' steps, Mrs. Oliver waving her hand from an upper window, and Polly standing on the stairs saying good-by.

"Come over to dinner some night, won't you, Edgar?" she asked carelessly; "any night you like, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday."

"Wednesday, please, as it comes first!" said Edgar roguishly. "May I help cook it?"

"You not only may, but you must. Good-by."

Polly went upstairs, and, after washing the lunch-dishes in a reflective turn of mind which did away with part of the irksomeness of the task, went into the parlor and sat on a stool at her mother's feet.

A soft rain had begun to fall; the fire burned brightly; the bamboo cast feathery shadows on the wall; from a house across the street came the sound of a beautiful voice singing,—

"Oh, holy night! the stars are brightly shining. It is the night of the dear Saviour's birth!"

All was peaceful and homelike; if it would only last, thought Polly.

"You are well to-night, mamacita."

A look of repressed pain crossed Mrs. Oliver's face as she smoothed the bright head lying in her lap. "Very comfortable, dear, and very happy; as who would not be, with such a darling comfort of a daughter? Always sunny, always helpful, these last dear weeks,—cook, housekeeper, nurse, banker, all in one, with never a complaint as one burden after another is laid on her willing shoulders."

"Don't, mamma!" whispered Polly, seeking desperately for her handkerchief. "I can stand scolding, but compliments always make me cry; you know they do. If Ferdinand and Isabella had told Columbus to discover my pocket instead of America, he would n't have been as famous as he is now; there, I 've found it. Now, mamma, you know your whole duty is to be well, well, well, and I 'll take care of everything else."

"I 've been thinking about Edgar, Polly, and I have a plan, but I shall not think of urging it against your will; you are the mistress of the house nowadays."

"I know what it is," sighed Polly. "You think we ought to take another boarder. A desire for boarders is like a taste for strong drink; once acquired, it is almost impossible to eradicate it from the system."

"I do think we ought to take this boarder. Not because it will make a difference in our income, but I am convinced that if Edgar can have a pleasant home and our companionship just at this juncture, he will break away from his idle habits, and perhaps his bad associations, and take a fresh start. I feel that we owe it to our dear old friends to do this for them, if we can. Of course, if it proves too great a tax upon you, or if I should have another attack of illness, it will be out of the question; but who knows? perhaps two or three months will accomplish our purpose. He can pay me whatever he has been paying in Berkeley, less the amount of his fare to and fro. We might have little Yung Lee again, and Mrs. Howe will be glad to rent her extra room. It has a fireplace, and will serve for both bedroom and study, if we add a table and student-lamp."

"I don't believe he will come," said Polly. "We are all very well as a diversion, but as a constancy we should pall upon him. I never could keep up to the level I have been maintaining for the last twenty-four hours, that is certain. It is nothing short of degradation to struggle as hard to amuse a boy as I have struggled to amuse Edgar. I don't believe he could endure such exhilaration week after week, and I am very sure it would kill me. Besides, he will fancy he is going to be watched and reported at headquarters in Santa Barbara!"

"I think very likely you are right; but perhaps I can put the matter so that it will strike him in some other light."

"Very well, mamacita; I 'm resigned. It will break up all our nice little two-ing, but we will be his guardian angel. I will be his guardian and you his angel, and oh, how he would dislike it if he knew it! But wait until odious Mr. Tony meets him to-night! What business is it of his if my hair is red! When he chaffs him for breaking his appointment, I dare say we shall never see him again."

"You are so jolly comfortable here! This house is the next best thing to mother," said Edgar, with boyish heartiness, as he stood on the white goatskin with his back to the Olivers' cheerful fireplace.

It was Wednesday evening of the next week. Polly was clearing away the dinner things, and Edgar had been arranging Mrs. Oliver's chair and pillows and footstool like the gentle young knight he was by nature.

What wonder that all the fellows, even "smirking Tony," liked him and sought his company? He who could pull an oar, throw a ball, leap a bar, ride a horse, or play a game of skill as if he had been born for each particular occupation,—what wonder that the ne'er-do-wells and idlers and scamps and dullards battered at his door continually and begged him to leave his books and come out and "stir up things"!

"If you think it is so 'jolly,'" said Mrs. Oliver, "how would you like to come here and live with us awhile?"

This was a bombshell. The boy hesitated naturally, being taken quite by surprise. ("Confound it!" he thought rapidly, "how shall I get out of this scrape without being impolite! They would n't give me one night out a week if I came!") "I 'd like it immensely, you know," he said aloud, "and it's awfully kind of you to propose it, and I appreciate it, but I don't think—I don't see, that is, how I could come, Mrs. Oliver. In the first place, I 'm quite sure my home people would dislike my intruding on your privacy; and then,—well, you know I am out in the evening occasionally, and should n't like to disturb you, besides, I 'm sure Miss Polly has her hands full now."

"Of course you would be often out in the evening, though I don't suppose you are a 'midnight reveler.' You would simply have a latch-key and go out and come in as you liked. Mrs. Howe's room is very pleasant, as you know; and you could study there before your open fire, and join us when you felt like it. Is it as convenient and pleasant for you to live on this side of the bay, and go back and forth?"

"Oh yes! I don't mind that part of it." ("This is worse than the Inquisition; I don't know but that she will get me in spite of everything!")

"Oh dear!" thought Mrs. Oliver, "he does n't want to come; and I don't want him to come, and I must urge him to come against his will. How very disagreeable missionary work is, to be sure! I sympathize with him, too. He is afraid of petticoat government, and fears that he will lose some of his precious liberty. If I had fifty children, I believe I should want them all girls."

"Besides, dear Mrs. Oliver," continued Edgar, after an awkward pause, "I don't think you are strong enough to have me here. I believe you 're only proposing it for my good. You know that I 'm in a forlorn students' boarding-house, and you are anxious to give me 'all the comforts of a home' for my blessed mother's sake, regardless of your own discomforts."

"Come here a moment and sit beside me on Polly's footstool. You were nearly three years old when Polly was born. You were all staying with me that summer. Did you know that you were my first boarders? You were a tiny fellow in kilts, very much interested in the new baby, and very anxious to hold her. I can see you now rocking the cradle as gravely as a man. Polly has hard times and many sorrows before her, Edgar! You are old enough to see that I cannot stay with her much longer."

Edgar was too awed and too greatly moved to answer.

"I should be very glad to have you with us, both because I think we could in some degree take the place of your mother and Margery, and because I should be glad to feel that in any sudden emergency, which I do not in the least expect, we should have a near friend to lean upon ever so little."

Edgar's whole heart went out in a burst of sympathy and manly tenderness. In that moment he felt willing to give up every personal pleasure, if he might lift a feather's weight of care from the fragile woman who spoke to him with such sweetness and trust. For there is nothing hopeless save meanness and poverty of nature; and any demand on Edgar Noble's instinct of chivalrous protection would never be discounted.

"I will come gladly, gladly, Mrs. Oliver," he said, "if only I can be of service; though I fear it will be all the other way. Please borrow me for a son, just to keep me in training, and I 'll try to bear my honors worthily."

"Thank you, dear boy. Then it is settled, if you are sure that the living in the city will not interfere with your studies; that is the main thing. We all look to you to add fresh laurels to your old ones. Are you satisfied with your college life thus far?"

("They have n't told her anything. That 's good," thought Edgar.) "Oh yes; fairly well! I don't—I don't go in for being a 'dig,' Mrs. Oliver. I shall never be the valedictorian, and all that sort of thing; it does n't pay. Who ever hears of valedictorians twenty years after graduation? Class honors don't amount to much."

"I suppose they can be overestimated; but they must prove some sort of excellence which will stand one in good stead in after years. I should never advise a boy or girl to work for honors alone; but if after doing one's very best the honors come naturally, they are very pleasant."

"Half the best scholars in our class are prigs," said Edgar discontentedly. "Always down on the live fellows who want any sport. Sometimes I wish I had never gone to college at all. Unless you deny yourself every pleasure, and live the life of a hermit, you can't take any rank. My father expects me to get a hundred and one per cent. in every study, and thinks I ought to rise with the lark and go to bed with the chickens. I don't know whether he ever sowed any wild oats; if he did, it was so long ago that he has quite forgotten I must sow mine some time. He ought to be thankful they are such a harmless sort."

"I don't understand boys very well," said Mrs. Oliver smilingly. "You see, I never have had any to study, and you must teach me a few things. Now, about this matter of wild oats. Why is it so necessary that they should be sown? Is Margery sowing hers? I don't know that Polly feels bound to sow any."

"I dare say they are not necessities," laughed Edgar, coloring. "Perhaps they are only luxuries."

Mrs. Oliver looked at the fire soberly. "I know there may be plenty of fine men who have a discreditable youth to look back upon,—a youth finally repented of and atoned for; but that is rather a weary process, I should think, and they are surely no stronger men because of the 'wild oats,' but rather in spite of them."

"I suppose so," sighed Edgar; "but it's so easy for women to be good! I know you were born a saint, to begin with. You don't know what it is to be in college, and to want to do everything that you can't and ought n't, and nothing that you can and ought, and get all tangled up in things you never meant to touch. However, we 'll see!"

Polly peeped in at the door very softly.

"They have n't any light; that 's favorable. He 's sitting on my footstool; he need n't suppose he is going to have that place! I think she has her hand on his arm,—yes, she has! And he is stroking it! Oh, you poor innocent child, you do not realize that that soft little hand of my mother's never lets go! It slips into a five and three-quarters glove, but you 'll be surprised, Mr. Edgar, when you discover you cannot get away from it. Very well, then; it is settled. I 'll go back and put the salt fish in soak for my boarder's breakfast. I seem to have my hands rather full!—a house to keep, an invalid mother, and now a boarder. The very thing I vowed that I never would have—another boarder; what grandmamma would have called an 'unstiddy boy boarder!"

And as Polly clattered the pots and pans, the young heathen in the parlor might have heard her fresh voice singing with great energy:

"Shall we, whose souls are lighted With wisdom from on high,— Shall we to men benighted The lamp of life deny?"



CHAPTER IX.

HARD TIMES.

The new arrangement worked exceedingly well.

As to Edgar's innermost personal feelings, no one is qualified to speak with any authority. Whether he experienced a change of heart, vowed better things, prayed to be delivered from temptation, or simply decided to turn over a new leaf, no one knows; the principal fact in his life, at this period, seems to have been an unprecedented lack of time for any great foolishness.

Certain unpleasant things had transpired on that eventful Friday night when he had missed his appointment with his fellow-students, which had resulted in an open scandal too disagreeable to be passed over by the college authorities; the redoubtable Tony had been returned with thanks to his fond parents in a distant part of the state, and two others had been temporarily suspended.

Edgar Noble was not too blind to see the happy chance that interfered with his presence on that occasion, and was sensible enough to realize that, had he been implicated in the least degree (he scorned the possibility of his taking any active part in such scurrilous proceedings), he would probably have shared Tony's fate.

Existence was wearing a particularly dismal aspect on that afternoon when Edgar had met Polly Oliver in the Berkeley woods. He felt "nagged," injured, blue, out of sorts with fate. He had not done anything very bad, he said to himself; at least, nothing half so bad as lots of other fellows, and yet everybody frowned on him. His father had, in his opinion, been unnecessarily severe; while his mother and sister had wept over him (by letter) as if he were a thief and a forger, instead of a fellow who was simply having a "little fling." He was annoyed at the conduct of Scott Burton,—"king of snobs and prigs," he named him,—who had taken it upon himself to inform Philip Noble of his (Edgar's) own personal affairs; and he was enraged at being preached at by that said younger brother.

But of late everything had taken an upward turn, and by way of variety, existence turned a smiling face toward him. He had passed his examinations, most unexpectedly to himself, with a respectable percentage to spare. There was a time when he would have been ashamed of this meagre result. He was now, just a little, but the feeling was somewhat submerged in his gratitude at having "squeaked through" at all.

A certain inspired Professor Hope, who wondered what effect encouragement would have on a fellow who did n't deserve any, but might possibly need it, came up to him after recitations, one day, and said:—

"Noble, I want to congratulate you on your papers in history and physics. They show signal ability. There is a plentiful lack of study evinced, but no want of grasp or power. You have talents that ought to put you among the first three men in the University, sir. I do not know whether you care to take the trouble to win such a place (it is a good deal of trouble), but you can win it if you like. That's all I have to say, Noble. Good-morning!"

This unlooked-for speech fell like balm on Edgar's wounded self-respect, and made him hold his head higher for a week; and, naturally, while his head occupied this elevated position, he was obliged to live up to it. He also felt obliged to make an effort, rather reluctantly, to maintain some decent standing in the classes of Professor Hope, even if he shirked in all the rest.

And now life, on the whole, save for one carking care that perched on his shoulder by day and sat on his eyelids at night, was very pleasant; though he could not flatter himself that he was absolutely a free agent.

After all ordinary engagements of concerts, theatres, lectures, or what not, he entered the house undisturbed, and noiselessly sought his couch. But one night, when he ventured to stay out till after midnight, just as he was stealing in softly, Mrs. Oliver's gentle voice came from the head of the stairs, saying, "Good-night, Edgar, the lamp is lighted in your room!"

Edgar closed his door and sat down disconsolately on the bed, cane in hand, hat on the back of his head. The fire had burned, to a few glowing coals; his slippers lay on the hearth, and his Christmas "easy jacket" hung over the back of his great armchair; his books lay open under the student-lamp, and there were two vases of fresh flowers in the room: that was Polly's doing.

"Mrs. Oliver was awake and listening for me; worrying about me, probably; I dare say she thought I 'd been waylaid by bandits," he muttered discontentedly. "I might as well live in the Young Women's Christian Association! I can't get mad with an angel, but I did n't intend being one myself! Good gracious! why don't they hire me a nurse and buy me a perambulator!"

But all the rest was perfect; and his chief chums envied him after they had spent an evening with the Olivers. Polly and he had ceased to quarrel, and were on good, frank, friendly terms. "She is no end of fun," he would have told you; "has no nonsensical young-lady airs about her, is always ready for sport, sings all kinds of songs from grave to gay, knows a good joke when you tell one, and keeps a fellow up to the mark as well as a maiden aunt."

All this was delightful to everybody concerned. Meanwhile the household affairs were as troublesome as they could well be. Mrs. Oliver developed more serious symptoms, and Dr. George asked the San Francisco physician to call to see her twice a week at least. The San Francisco physician thought "a year at Carlsbad, and a year at Nice, would be a good thing;" but, failing these, he ordered copious quantities of expensive drugs, and the reserve fund shrank, though the precious three hundred and twelve dollars was almost intact.

Poor Mrs. Chadwick sent tearful monthly letters, accompanied by checks of fifty to sixty-five dollars. One of the boarders had died; two had gone away; the season was poor; Ah Foy had returned to China; Mr. Greenwood was difficult about his meals; the roof leaked; provisions were dear; Mrs. Holmes in the next street had decided to take boarders; Eastern people were grumbling at the weather, saying it was not at all as reported in the guide-books; real-estate and rents were very low; she hoped to be able to do better next month; and she was Mrs. Oliver's "affectionate Clementine Churchill Chadwick."

Polly had held a consultation with the principal of her school, who had assured her that as she was so well in advance of her class, she could be promoted the next term, if she desired. Accordingly, she left school in order to be more with her mother, and as she studied with Edgar in the evening, she really lost nothing.

Mrs. Howe remitted four dollars from the monthly rent, in consideration of Spanish lessons given to her two oldest children. This experiment proved a success, and Polly next accepted an offer to come three times a week to the house of a certain Mrs. Baer to amuse (instructively) the four little Baer cubs, while the mother Baer wrote a "History of the Dress-Reform Movement in English-Speaking Nations."

For this service Polly was paid ten dollars a month in gold coin, while the amount of spiritual wealth which she amassed could not possibly be estimated in dollars and cents. The ten dollars was very useful, for it procured the services of a kind, strong woman, who came on these three afternoons of Polly's absence, put the entire house in order, did the mending, rubbed Mrs. Oliver's tired back, and brushed her hair until she fell asleep.

So Polly assisted in keeping the wolf from the door, and her sacrifices watered her young heart and kept it tender. "Money may always be a beautiful thing. It is we who make it grimy."

Edgar shared in the business conferences now. He had gone into convulsions of mirth over Polly's system of accounts, and insisted, much against her will, in teaching her book-keeping, striving to convince her that the cash could be kept in a single box, and the accounts separated in a book.

These lessons were merry occasions, for there was a conspicuous cavity in Polly's brain where the faculty for mathematics should have been.

"Your imbecility is so unusual that it 's a positive inspiration," Edgar would say. "It is n't like any ordinary stupidity; there does n't seem to be any bottom to it, you know; it 's abnormal, it 's fascinating, Polly!"

Polly glowed under this unstinted praise. "I am glad you like it," she said. "I always like to have a thing first-class of its kind, though I can't pride myself that it compares with your Spanish accent, Edgar; that stands absolutely alone and unapproachable for badness. I don't worry about my mathematical stupidity a bit since I read Dr. Holmes, who says that everybody has an idiotic area in his mind."

There had been very little bookkeeping to-night. It was raining in torrents. Mrs. Oliver was talking with General M—— in the parlor, while Edgar and Polly were studying in the dining-room.

Polly laid down her book and leaned back in her chair. It had been a hard day, and it was very discouraging that a new year should come to one's door laden with vexations and anxieties, when everybody naturally expected new years to be happy, through January and February at least.

"Edgar," she sighed plaintively, "I find that this is a very difficult world to live in, sometimes."

Edgar looked up from his book, and glanced at her as she lay back with closed eyes in the Chinese lounging-chair. She was so pale, so tired, and so very, very pretty just then, her hair falling in bright confusion round her face, her whole figure relaxed with weariness, and her lips quivering a little, as if she would like to cry if she dared.

Polly with dimples playing hide and seek in rosy cheeks, with dazzling eyes, and laughing lips, and saucy tongue, was sufficiently captivating; but Polly with bright drops on her lashes, with a pathetic droop in the corners of her mouth and the suspicion of a tear in her voice,—this Polly was irresistible.

"What's the matter, pretty Poll?"

"Nothing specially new. The Baer cubs were naughty as little demons to-day. One of them had a birthday-party yesterday, with four kinds of frosted cake. Mrs. Baer's system of management is n't like mine, and until I convince the children I mean what I say, they give me the benefit of the doubt. The Baer place is so large that Mrs. Baer never knows where disobedience may occur, and that she may be prepared she keeps one of Mr. Baer's old slippers on the front porch, one in the carriage-house, one in the arbor, one in the nursery, and one under the rose hedge at the front gate. She showed me all these haunts, and told me to make myself thoroughly at home. I felt tempted to-day, but I resisted."

"You are working too hard, Polly. I propose we do something about Mrs. Chadwick. You are bearing all the brunt of other people's faults and blunders."

"But, Edgar, everything is so mixed: Mrs. Chadwick's year of lease is n't over; I suppose she cannot be turned out by main force, and if we should ask her to leave the house it might go unrented for a month or two, and the loss of that money might be as much as the loss of ten or fifteen dollars a month for the rest of the year. I could complain of her to Dr. George, but there again I am in trouble. If he knew that we are in difficulties, he would offer to lend us money in an instant, and that would make mamma ill, I am sure; for we are under all sorts of obligations to him now, for kindnesses that can never be repaid. Then, too, he advised us not to let Mrs. Chadwick have the house. He said that she had n't energy enough to succeed; but mamma was so sorry for her, and so determined to give her a chance, that she persisted in letting her have it. We shall have to find a cheaper flat, by and by, for I 've tried every other method of economizing, for fear of making mamma worse with the commotion of moving."



CHAPTER X.

EDGAR GOES TO CONFESSION.

"I 'm afraid I make it harder, Polly, and you and your mother must be frank with me, and turn me out of the Garden of Eden the first moment I become a nuisance. Will you promise?"

"You are a help to us, Edgar; we told you so the other night. We could n't have Yung Lee unless you lived with us, and I could n't earn any money if I had to do all the housework."

"I 'd like to be a help, but I 'm so helpless!"

"We are all poor together just now, and that makes it easier."

"I am worse than poor!" Edgar declared.

"What can be worse than being poor?" asked Polly, with a sigh drawn from the depths of her boots.

"To be in debt," said Edgar, who had not the slightest intention of making this remark when he opened his lips.

Now the Olivers had only the merest notion of Edgar's college troubles; they knew simply what the Nobles had told them, that he was in danger of falling behind his class. This, they judged, was a contingency no longer to be feared; as various remarks dropped by the students who visited the house, and sundry bits of information contributed by Edgar himself, in sudden bursts of high spirits, convinced them that he was regaining his old rank, and certainly his old ambition.

"To be in debt," repeated Edgar doggedly, "and to see no possible way out of it. Polly, I 'm in a peck of trouble! I 've lost money, and I 'm at my wits' end to get straight again!"

"Lost money? How much? Do you mean that you lost your pocket-book?"

"No, no; not in that way."

"You mean that you spent it," said Polly. "You mean you overdrew your allowance."

"Of course I did. Good gracious, Polly! there are other ways of losing money than by dropping it in the road. I believe girls don't know anything more about the world than the geography tells them,—that it's a round globe like a ball or an orange!"

"Don't be impolite. The less they know about the old world the better they get on, I dare say. Your colossal fund of worldly knowledge does n't seem to make you very happy, just now. How could you lose your money, I ask? You 're nothing but a student, and you are not in any business, are you?"

"Yes, I am in business, and pretty bad business it is, too."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I 've been winding myself up into a hard knot, the last six months, and the more I try to disentangle myself, the worse the thing gets. My allowance is n't half enough; nobody but a miser could live on it. I 've been unlucky, too. I bought a dog, and some one poisoned him before I could sell him; then I lamed a horse from the livery-stable, and had to pay damages; and so it went. The fellows all kept lending me money, rather than let me stay out of the little club suppers, and since I 've shut down on expensive gayeties they've gone back on me, and all want their money at once; so does the livery-stable keeper, and the owner of the dog, and a dozen other individuals; in fact, the debtors' prison yawns before me."

"Upon my word, I 'm ashamed of you!" said Polly, with considerable heat. "To waste money in that way, when you knew perfectly well you could n't afford it, was—well, it was downright dishonest, that's what it was! To hear you talk about dogs, and lame horses, and club suppers, anybody would suppose you were a sporting man! Pray, what else do they do in that charming college set of yours?"

"I might have known you would take that tone, but I did n't, somehow. I told you just because I thought you were the one girl in a thousand who would understand and advise a fellow when he knows he's made a fool of himself and acted like a cur! I did n't suppose you would call hard names, and be so unsympathizing, after all we have gone through together!"

"I 'm not!—I did n't!—I won't do it again!" said Polly incoherently, as she took a straight chair, planted her elbows on the table, and leaned her chin in her two palms. "Now let's talk about it; tell me everything quickly. How much is it?"

"Nearly two hundred dollars! Don't shudder so provokingly, Polly; that 's a mere bagatelle for a college man, but I know it's a good deal for me,—a good deal more than I know how to get, at all events."

"Where is the debtors' prison?" asked Polly in an awestruck whisper.

"Oh, there is n't any such thing nowadays! I was only chaffing; but of course, the men to whom I am in debt can apply to father, and get me in a regular mess. I 've pawned my watch to stave one of them off. You see, Polly, I would rather die than do it; nevertheless, I would write and tell father everything, and ask him for the money, but circumstances conspire just at this time to make it impossible. You know he bought that great ranch in Ventura county with Albert Harding of New York. Harding has died insolvent, and father has to make certain payments or lose control of a valuable property. It's going to make him a rich man some time, but for a year or two we shall have to count every penny. Of course the fruit crop this season has been the worst in ten years, and of course there has been a frost this winter, the only severe one within the memory of the oldest inhabitant,—that's the way it always is,—and there I am! I suppose you despise me, Polly?"

"Yes, I do!" (hotly)—"No, I don't altogether, and I 'm not good enough myself to be able to despise people. Besides, you are not a despisable boy. You were born manly and generous and true-hearted, and these hateful things that you have been doing are not a part of your nature a bit; but I 'm ashamed of you for yielding to bad impulses when you have so many good ones, and—oh dear!—I do that very same thing myself, now that I stop to think about it. But how could you, you, Edgar Noble, take that evil-eyed, fat-nosed, common Tony Selling for a friend? I wonder at you!"

"He is n't so bad in some ways. I owe him eighty dollars of that money, and he says he 'll give me six months to pay it."

"I 'm glad he has some small virtues," Polly replied witheringly. "Now, what can we do, Edgar? Let us think. What can, what can we do?" and she leaned forward reflectively, clasping her knee with her hands and wrinkling her brow with intense thought.

That little "we" fell on Edgar's loneliness of spirit consolingly; for it adds a new pang to self-distrust when righteous people withdraw from one in utter disdain, even if they are "only girls" who know little of a boy's temptations.

"If you can save something each month out of your allowance, Edgar," said Polly, finally, with a brighter look, "I can spare fifty or even seventy-five dollars of our money, and you may pay it back as you can. We are not likely to need it for several months, and your father and mother ought not to be troubled with this matter, now that it's over and done with."

The blood rushed to Edgar's face as he replied stiffly: "I may be selfish and recklessly extravagant, but I don't borrow money from girls. If you wanted to add the last touch to my shame, you 've done it. Don't you suppose I have eyes, Polly Oliver? Don't you suppose I 've hated myself ever since I came under this roof, when I have seen the way you worked and planned and plotted and saved and denied yourself? Don't you suppose I 've looked at you twenty times a day, and said to myself, 'You miserable, selfish puppy, getting yourself and everybody who cares for you into trouble, just look at that girl and be ashamed of yourself down to the ground!' And now you offer to lend me money! Oh, Polly, I wouldn't have believed it of you!"

Polly felt convicted of sin, although she was not very clear as to the reason. She blushed as she said hastily, "Your mother has been a very good friend to us, Edgar; why should n't we help you a little, just for once? Now, let us go in to see mamma and talk it all over together!"

"If you pity me, Polly, don't tell her; I could not bear to have that saint upon earth worried over my troubles; it was mean enough to add a feather's weight to yours."

"Well, we won't do it, then," said Polly, with maternal kindness in her tone. "Do stop pacing up and down like a caged panther. We 'll find some other way out of the trouble; but boys are such an anxiety! Do you think, Edgar, that you have reformed?"

"Bless your soul! I 've kept within my allowance for two or three months. As Susan Nipper says, 'I may be a camel, but I 'm not a dromedary!' When I found out where I was, I stopped; I had to stop, and I knew it. I 'm all right now, thanks to—several things. In fact, I 've acquired a kind of appetite for behaving myself now, and if the rascally debts were only out of the way, I should be the happiest fellow in the universe."

"You cannot apply to your father, so there is only one thing to do,—that is, to earn the money."

"But how, when I 'm in the class-room three fourths of the day?"

"I don't know," said Polly hopelessly. "I can tell you what to do, but not how to do it; I 'm nothing but a miserable girl."

"I must stay in college, and I must dig and make up for lost time; so most of my evenings will be occupied."

"You must put all your 'musts' together," said Polly decisively, "and then build a bridge over them, or tunnel through them, or span them with an arch. We 'll keep thinking about it, and I'm sure something will turn up; I 'm not discouraged a bit. You see, Edgar," and Polly's face flushed with feeling as she drew patterns on the tablecloth with her tortoise-shell hairpin,—"you see, of course, the good fairies are not going to leave you in the lurch when you 've turned your back on the ugly temptations, and are doing your very best. And now that we 've talked it all over, Edgar, I 'm not ashamed of you! Mamma and I have been so proud of your successes the last month. She believes in you!"

"Of course," said Edgar dolefully; "because she knows only the best."

"But I know the best and the worst too, and I believe in you! It seems to me the best is always the truest part of one, after all. No, we are not going to be naughty any more; we are going to earn that hateful Tony's money; we are going to take all the class honors, just for fun, not because we care for such trifles, and we are going home for the summer holidays in a blaze of glory!"

Edgar rose with a lighter heart in his breast than he had felt there for many a week. "Good-night, Parson Polly," he said rather formally, for he was too greatly touched to be able to command his tones; "add your prayers to your sermons, and perhaps you 'll bring the black sheep safely into the fold."

The quick tears rushed to Polly's eyes; for Edgar's stiff manner sat curiously on him, and she feared she had annoyed him by too much advice. "Oh, Edgar," she said, with a quivering lip, "I did n't mean to pose or to preach! You know how full of faults I am, and if I were a boy I should be worser I was only trying to help a little, eves if I am younger and a girl! Don't—don't think I was setting myself up as better than you; that's so mean and conceited and small! Edgar dear, I am so proud to think you told me your troubles; don't turn away from me, or I shall think you are sorry you trusted me!" and Polly laid a persuasive, disarming hand on the lad's shoulder.

Suddenly Edgar's heart throbbed with a new feeling. He saw as in a vision the purity, fidelity, and tender yearning of a true woman's nature shining through a girl's eyes. In that moment he wished as never before to be manly and worthy. He seemed all at once to understand his mother, his sister, all women better, and with a quick impulsive gesture which he would not have understood a month before, he bent his head over astonished Polly's hand, kissed it reverently, then opened the door and went to his room without a word.



CHAPTER XI.

THE LADY IN BLACK.

"I 've had a little adventure," said Polly to her mother one afternoon. "I went out, for the sake of the ride, on the Sutler Street cable-cars with Milly Foster. When we came to the end of the line, Milly walked down to Greary Street to take her car home. I went with her to the corner, and as I was coming back I saw a lady in black alighting from an elegant carriage. She had a coachman and a footman, both with weeds on their hats, and she seemed very sad and grave; but she had such a sweet, beautiful face that I was sorry for her the first moment I looked at her. She walked along in front of me toward the cemetery, and there we met those boys that stand about the gate with bouquets. She glanced at the flowers as if she would like to buy some, but you know how hideous they always are, every color of the rainbow crowded in tightly together, and she looked away, dissatisfied. I don't know why she had n't brought some with her,—she looked rich enough to buy a whole conservatory; perhaps she had n't expected to drive there. However, Milly Foster had given me a whole armful of beautiful flowers,—you know she has a 'white garden:' there were white sweet peas, Lamarque roses, and three stalks of snowy Eucharist lilies. I need n't tell my own mother that I did n't stop to think twice; I just stepped up to her and said, 'I should like to give you my flowers, please. I don't need them, and I am sure they are just sweet and lovely enough for the place you want to lay them.'

"The tears came into her eyes,—she was just ready to cry at anything, you know,—and she took them at once, and said, squeezing my hand very tightly, 'I will take them, dear. The grave of my own, and my only, little girl lies far away from this,—the snow is falling on it to-day,—but whenever I cannot give the flowers to her, I always find the resting-places of other children, and lay them there. I know it makes her happy, for she was born on Christmas Day, and she was full of the Christmas spirit, always thinking of other people, never of herself.'

"She did look so pale, and sad, and sweet, that I began to think of you without your troublesome Polly, or your troublesome Polly without you; and she was pleased with the flowers and glad that I understood, and willing to love anything that was a girl or that was young,—oh, you know, mamacita,—and so I began to cry a little, too; and the first thing I knew I kissed her, which was most informal, if not positively impertinent. But she seemed to like it, for she kissed me back again, and I ran and jumped on the car, and here I am! You will have to eat your dinner without any flowers, madam, for you have a vulgarly strong, healthy daughter, and the poor lady in black has n't."

This was Polly's first impression of "the lady in black," and thus began an acquaintance which was destined before many months to play a very important part in Polly's fortunes and misfortunes.

What the lady in black thought of Polly, then and subsequently, was told at her own fireside, where she sat, some six weeks later, chatting over an after-dinner cup of coffee with her brother-in-law.

"Take the armchair, John," said Mrs. Bird; "for I have 'lots to tell you,' as the young folks say. I was in the Children's Hospital about five o'clock to-day. I have n't been there for three months, and I felt guilty about it. The matron asked me to go upstairs into the children's sitting-room, the one Donald and I fitted up in memory of Carol. She said that a young lady was telling stories to the children, but that I might go right up and walk in. I opened the door softly, though I don't think the children would have noticed if I had fired a cannon in their midst, and stood there, spellbound by the loveliest, most touching scene I ever witnessed. The room has an open fire, and in a low chair, with the firelight shining on her face, sat that charming, impulsive girl who gave me the flowers at the cemetery—I told you about her. She was telling stories to the children. There were fifteen or twenty of them in the room, all the semi-invalids and convalescents, I should think, and they were gathered about her like flies round a saucer of honey. Every child that could, was doing its best to get a bit of her dress to touch, or a finger of her hand to hold, or an inch of her chair to lean upon. They were the usual pale, weary-looking children, most of them with splints and weights and crutches, and through the folding-doors that opened into the next room I could see three more tiny things sitting up in their cots and drinking in every word with eagerness and transport.

"And I don't wonder. There is magic in that girl for sick or sorrowing people. I wish you could have seen and heard her. Her hair is full of warmth and color; her lips and cheeks are pink; her eyes are bright with health and mischief, and beaming with love, too; her smile is like sunshine, and her voice as glad as a wild bird's. I never saw a creature so alive and radiant, and I could feel that the weak little creatures drank in her strength and vigor, without depleting her, as flowers drink in the sunlight.

"As she stood up and made ready to go, she caught sight of me, and ejaculated, with the most astonished face, 'Why, it is my lady in black!' Then, with a blush, she added, 'Excuse me! I spoke without thinking—I always do. I have thought of you very often since I gave you the flowers; and as I did n't know your name, I have always called you my lady in black.'

"'I should be very glad to be your "lady" in any color,' I answered, 'and my other name is Mrs. Bird.' Then I asked her if she would not come and see me. She said, 'Yes, with pleasure,' and told me also that her mother was ill, and that she left her as little as possible; whereupon I offered to go and see her instead.

"Now, here endeth the first lesson, and here beginneth the second, namely, my new plan, on which I wish to ask your advice. You know that all the money Donald and I used to spend on Carol's nurses, physicians, and what not, we give away each Christmas Day in memory of her. It may be that we give it in monthly installments, but we try to plan it and let people know about it on that day. I propose to create a new profession for talented young women who like to be helpful to others as well as to themselves. I propose to offer this little Miss Oliver, say twenty-five dollars a month, if she will go regularly to the Children's Hospital and to the various orphan asylums just before supper and just before bedtime, and sing and tell stories to the children for an hour. I want to ask her to give two hours a day only, going to each place once or twice a week; but of course she will need a good deal of time for preparation. If she accepts, I will see the managers of the various institutions, offer her services, and arrange for the hours. I am confident that they will receive my protegee with delight, and I am sure that I shall bring the good old art of story-telling into fashion again, through this gifted girl. Now, John, what do you think?"

"I heartily approve, as usual. It is a novelty, but I cannot see why it 's not perfectly expedient, and I certainly can think of no other way in which a monthly expenditure of twenty-five dollars will carry so much genuine delight and comfort to so many different children. Carol would sing for joy if she could know of your plan."

"Perhaps she does know it," said Mrs. Bird softly.

And so it was settled.

Polly's joy and gratitude at Mrs. Bird's proposal baffles the powers of the narrator. It was one of those things pleasant to behold, charming to imagine, but impossible to describe. After Mrs. Bird's carriage had been whirled away, she watched at the window for Edgar, and, when she saw him nearing the steps, did not wait for him to unlock the door, but opened it from the top of the stairs, and flew down them to the landing as lightly as a feather.

As for Edgar himself, he was coming up with unprecedented speed, and they nearly fell into each other's arms as they both exclaimed, in one breath, "Hurrah!" and then, in another, "Who told you?"

"How did you know it?" asked Edgar. "Has Tom Mills been here?"

"What is anybody by the name of Mills to me in my present state of mind!" exclaimed Polly. "Have you some good news, too? If so, speak out quickly."

"Good news? I should think I had; what else were you hurrahing about? I 've won the scholarship, and I have a chance to earn some money! Tom Mills's eyes are in bad condition, and the oculist says he must wear blue goggles and not look at a book for two months. His father wrote to me to-day, and he asks if I will read over the day's lessons with Tom every afternoon or evening, so that he can keep up with the class; and says that if I will do him this great service he will be glad to pay me any reasonable sum. He 'ventured' to write me on Professor Hope's recommendation."

"Oh, Edgar, that is too, too good!" cried Polly, jumping up and down in delight. "Now hear my news. What do you suppose has happened?"

"Turned-up noses have come into style."

"Insulting! That is n't the spirit I showed when you told me your good news."

"You 've found the leak in the gas stove."

"On the contrary, I don't care if all the gas in our establishment leaks from now to—the millennium. Guess again, stupid!"

"Somebody has left you a million."

"No, no!" (scornfully.) "Well, I can't wait your snail's pace. My lady in black, Mrs. Donald Bird, has been here all the afternoon, and she offers me twenty-five dollars a month to give up the Baer cubs and tell stories two hours a day in the orphan asylums and the Children's Hospital! Just what I love to do! Just what I always longed to do! Just what I would do if I were a billionaire! Is n't it heavenly?"

"Well, well! We are in luck, Polly. Hurrah! Fortune smiles at last on the Noble-Oliver household. Let's have a jollification! Oh, I forgot. Tom Mills wants to come to dinner. Will you mind?"

"Let him come, goggles and all, we 'll have the lame and the halt, as well as the blind, if we happen to see any. Mamma won't care. I told her we 'd have a feast to-night that should vie with any of the old Roman banquets! Here 's my purse; please go down on Sutter Street—ride both ways—and buy anything extravagant and unseasonable you can find. Get forced tomatoes; we'll have 'chops and tomato sauce' a la Mrs. Bardell; order fried oysters in a browned loaf; get a quart of ice cream, the most expensive variety they have, a loaf of the richest cake in the bakery, and two chocolate eclairs apiece. Buy hothouse roses, or orchids, for the table, and give five cents to that dirty little boy on the corner there. In short, as Frank Stockton says, 'Let us so live while we are up that we shall forget we have ever been down'!" and Polly plunged upstairs to make a toilet worthy of the occasion.

The banquet was such a festive occasion that Yung Lee's Chinese reserve was sorely tried, and he giggled more than once, while waiting on the table.

Polly had donned a trailing black silk skirt of her mother's, with a white chuddah shawl for a court train, and a white lace waist to top it. Her hair was wound into a knot on the crown of her head and adorned with three long black ostrich feathers, which soared to a great height, and presented a most magnificent and queenly appearance.

Tom Mills, whose father was four times a millionaire, wondered why they never had such gay times at his home, and tried to fancy his sister Blanche sparkling and glowing and beaming over the prospect of earning twenty-five dollars a month.

Then, when bedtime came, Polly and her mother talked it all over in the dark.

"Oh, mamacita, I am so happy! It's such a lovely beginning, and I shall be so glad, so glad to do it! I hope Mrs. Bird did n't invent the plan for my good, for I have been frightfully shabby each time she has seen me, but she says she thinks of nothing but the children. Now we will have some pretty things, won't we? And oh! do you think, not just now, but some time in the distant centuries, I can have a string of gold beads?"

"I do, indeed," sighed Mrs. Oliver. "You are certainly in no danger of being spoiled by luxury in your youth, my poor little Pollykins; but you will get all these things some time, I feel sure, if they are good for you, and if they belong to you. You remember the lines I read the other day:—

"'Hast not thy share? On winged feet, Lo! it rushes thee to meet; And all that Nature made thy own, Floating in air or pent in stone, Will rive the hills and swim the sea And, like thy shadow, follow thee.'"

"Yes," said Polly contentedly; "I am satisfied. My share of the world's work is rushing to meet me. To-night I could just say with Sarah Jewett's Country Doctor, 'My God, I thank thee for my future.'"



CHAPTER XII.

THE GREAT SILENCE.

The months of April and May were happy ones. The weather was perfect, as only California weather understands the art of being; the hills were at their greenest; the wind almost forgot to blow; the fields blazed in wild-flowers; day after day rose in cloudless splendor, and day after day the Golden Gate shone like a sapphire in the sun.

Polly was inwardly nervous. She had the "awe of prosperity" in her heart, and everything seemed too bright to last.

Both she and Edgar were very busy. But work that one loves is no hardship, especially when one is strong and young and hopeful, and when one has great matters at stake, such as the health and wealth of an invalid mother, or the paying off of disagreeable debts.

Even the limp Mrs. Chadwick shared in the general joy; for Mr. Greenwood was so utterly discouraged with her mismanagement of the house, so determined not to fly to ills he knew not of, and so anxious to bring order out of chaos, that on the spur of the moment one day he married her. On the next day he discharged the cook, hired a better one the third, dunned the delinquent boarder the fourth, and collected from him on the fifth; so the May check (signed Clementine Chadwick Greenwood) was made out for eighty-five dollars.

But in the midst of it all, when everything in the outside world danced with life and vigor, and the little house could hardly hold its sweet content,—without a glimmer of warning, without a moment's fear or dread, without the precious agony of parting, Mrs. Oliver slipped softly, gently, safely, into the Great Silence.

Mercifully it was Edgar, not Polly, who found her in her accustomed place on the cushions, lying with closed eyelids and smiling lips.

It was half past five. . . . Polly must have gone out at four, as usual, and would be back in half an hour. . . . Yung Lee was humming softly in the little kitchen. . . . In five minutes Edgar Noble had suffered, lived, and grown ten years. He was a man. . . . And then came Polly,—and Mrs. Bird with her, thank Heaven!—Polly breathless and glowing, looking up at the bay window for her mother's smile of welcome.

In a few seconds the terrible news was broken, and Polly, overpowered with its awful suddenness, dropped before it as under a physical blow.

It was better so. Mrs. Bird carried her home for the night, as she thought, but a merciful blur stole over the child's tired brain, and she lay for many weeks in a weary illness of delirium and stupor and fever.

Meanwhile, Edgar acted as brother, son, and man of the house. He it was who managed everything, from the first sorrowful days up to the closing of the tiny upper flat where so much had happened: not great things of vast outward importance, but small ones,—little miseries and mortifications and struggles and self-denials and victories, that made the past half year a milestone in his life.

A week finished it all! It takes a very short time, he thought, to scatter to the winds of heaven all the gracious elements that make a home. Only a week; and in the first days of June, Edgar went back to Santa Barbara for the summer holidays without even a sight of his brave, helpful girl-comrade.

He went back to his brother's congratulations, his sister's kisses, his mother's happy tears, and his father's hearty hand-clasp, full of renewed pride and belief in his eldest son. But there was a shadow on the lad's high spirits as he thought of gay, courageous, daring Polly, stripped in a moment of all that made life dear.

"I wish we could do something for her, poor little soul," he said to his mother in one of their long talks in the orange-tree sitting-room. "Tongue cannot tell what Mrs. Oliver has been to me, and I 'm not a bit ashamed to own up to Polly's influence, even if she is a girl and two or three years younger than I am. Hang it! I 'd like to see the fellow that could live under the same roof as those two women, and not do the best that was in him! Has n't Polly some relatives in the East?"

"No near ones, and none that she has ever seen. Still, she is not absolutely alone, as many girls would be under like circumstances. We would be only too glad to have her here; the Howards have telegraphed asking her to spend the winter with them in Cambridge; I am confident Dr. Winship will do the same when the news of Mrs. Oliver's death reaches Europe; and Mrs. Bird seems to have constituted herself a sort of fairy Godmother in chief. You see everybody loves Polly; and she will probably have no less than four homes open to her. The fact is, if you should put Polly on a desert island, the bees and the butterflies and the birds would gather about her; she draws everything and everybody to her magically. Then, too, she is not penniless. Rents are low, and she cannot hope to get quite as much for the house as before, but even counting repairs, taxes, and furnishings, we think she is reasonably certain of fifty dollars a month."

"She will never be idle, unless this sorrow makes a great change in her. Polly seems to have been created to 'become' by 'doing.'"

"Yet she does not in the least relish work, Edgar. I never knew a girl with a greater appetite for luxury. One cannot always see the deepest reasons in God's providence as applied to one's own life and character; but it is often easy to understand them as one looks at other people and notes their growth and development. For instance, Polly's intense love for her invalid mother has kept her from being selfish. The straitened circumstances in which she has been compelled to live have prevented her from yielding to self-indulgence or frivolity. Even her hunger for the beautiful has been a discipline; for since beautiful things were never given to her ready-made, she has been forced to create them. Her lot in life, which she has always lamented, has given her a self-control, a courage, a power, which she never would have had in the world had she grown up in luxury. She is too young to see it, but it is very clear to me that Polly Oliver is a glorious product of circumstances."

"But," objected Edgar, "that is not fair. You are giving all the credit to circumstances, and none to Polly's own nature."

"Not at all. If there had not been the native force to develop, experience would have had nothing to work upon. As it is, her lovely childish possibilities have become probabilities, and I look to see the girlish probabilities blossom into womanly certainties."

Meanwhile Polly, it must be confessed, was not at the present time quite justifying the good opinion of her friends.

She had few of the passive virtues. She could bear sharp stabs of misfortune, which fired her energy and pride, but she resented pin pricks. She could carry heavy, splendid burdens cheerfully, but she fretted under humble cares. She could serve by daring, but not by waiting. She would have gone to the stake or the scaffold, I think, with tolerable grace; but she would probably have recanted any article of faith if she had been confronted with life-imprisonment.

Trouble that she took upon herself for the sake of others, and out of love, she accepted sweetly. Sorrows that she did not choose, which were laid upon her without her consent, and which were "just the ones she did not want, and did not need, and would not have, and could not bear,"—these sorrows found her unwilling, bitter, and impatient.

Yet if life is a school and we all have lessons to learn in it, the Great Teacher will be unlikely to set us tasks which we have already finished. Some review there must be, for certain things are specially hard to keep in mind, and have to be gone over and over, lest they fade into forgetfulness. But there must be continued progress in a life school. There is no parrot repetition, sing-song, meaningless, of words that have ceased to be vital. New lessons are to be learned as fast as the old ones are understood. Of what use to set Polly tasks to develop her bravery, when she was already brave?

Courage was one of the little jewels set in her fairy crown when she was born, but there was a round, empty space beside it, where Patience should have been. Further along was Daring, making a brilliant show, but again there was a tiny vacancy waiting for Prudence.

The crown made a fine appearance, on the whole, because the large jewels were mostly in place, and the light of these blinded you to the lack of the others; but to the eye of the keen observer there was a want of symmetry and completeness.

Polly knew the unfinished state of her fairy crown as well as anybody else. She could not plead ignorance as an excuse; but though she would have gone on polishing the great gems with a fiery zeal, she added the little jewels very slowly, and that only on compulsion.

There had been seven or eight weeks of partial unconsciousness, when the sorrow and the loneliness of life stole into her waking dreams only vaguely and at intervals; when she was unhappy, and could not remember why; and slept, to wake and wonder and sleep again.

Then there were days and weeks when the labor of living was all that the jaded body could accomplish; when memory was weak; when life began at the pillow, and ended at the foot of the bed, and the universe was bounded by the chamber windows.

But when her strength came back, and she stood in the middle of the floor, clothed and in her right mind, well enough to remember,—oh! then indeed the deep waters of bitterness rolled over poor Polly's head and into her heart, and she sank beneath them without a wish or a struggle to rise.

"If it had been anything else!" she sobbed. "Why did God take away my most precious, my only one to live for, when I was trying to take care of her, trying to be good, trying to give back the strength that had been poured out on me,—miserable, worthless me! Surely, if a girl was willing to do without a father and sisters and brothers, without good times and riches, willing to work like a galley slave, willing to 'scrimp' and plan and save for ever and ever; surely 'they' might be willing that she should keep her mother!"

Poor Polly! Providence at this time seemed nothing more than a collection of demons which she classified under the word "they," and which she felt certain were scourging her pitilessly and needlessly. She could not see any reason or justification in "their" cruelties,—for that was the only term she could apply to her afflictions.

Mrs. Bird had known sorrow, and she did her best to minister to the troubled and wrong little heart; but it was so torn that it could be healed only by the soft balm of Time.

Perhaps, a long while after such a grief,—it is always "perhaps" in a great crisis, though the certainty is ours if we will but grasp it,—perhaps the hidden meaning of the sorrow steals gently into our softened hearts. We see, as in a vision, a new light by which to work; we rise, cast off the out-grown shell, and build us a more stately mansion, in which to dwell till God makes that home also too small to hold the ever-growing soul!



CHAPTER XIII.

A GARDEN FLOWER, OR A BANIAN-TREE.

In August Mr. John Bird took Polly to the Nobles' ranch in Santa Barbara, in the hope that the old scenes and old friends might soothe her, and give her strength to take up the burden of life with something of her former sunshiny spirit.

Edgar was a junior now, back at his work, sunburned and strong from his summer's outing. He had seen Polly twice after his return to San Francisco; but the first meeting was an utter failure, and the second nearly as trying. Neither of them could speak of the subject that absorbed their thoughts, nor had either courage enough to begin other topics of conversation. The mere sight of Edgar was painful to the girl now, it brought to mind so much that was dear, so much that was past and gone.

In the serenity of the ranch-life, the long drives with Margery and Philip, the quiet chats with Mrs. Noble, Polly gained somewhat in strength; but the old "spring," vitality, and enthusiasm had vanished for the time, and the little circle of friends marveled at this Polly without her nonsense, her ready smiles, her dancing dimples, her extravagances of speech.

Once a week, at least, Dr. George would steal an hour or two, and saddle his horse to take Polly for a gallop over the hills, through the canons, or on the beach.

His half-grave, half-cheery talks on these rides did her much good. He sympathized and understood and helped, even when he chided, and Polly sometimes forgot her own troubles in wondering whether Dr. George had not suffered and overcome a good many of his own.

"You make one great error, my child," he once said, in response to one of Polly's outbursts of grief; "and it is an error young people very naturally fall into. You think that no one was ever chastened as you are. You say, with Jeremiah, 'No prophet is afflicted like unto this prophet!' Now you are simply bearing your own share of the world's trouble. How can you hope to escape the universal lot? There are dozens of people within sight of this height of land who have borne as much, and must bear as much again. I know this must seem a hard philosophy, and I should not preach it to any but a stout little spirit like yours, my Polly. These things come to all of us; they are stern facts; they are here, and they must be borne; but it makes all the difference in the world how we bear them. We can clench our fists, close our lips tightly, and say, 'Since I must, I can;' or we can look up and say cheerfully, 'I will!' The first method is philosophical and strong enough, but there is no sweetness in it. If you have this burden to carry, make it as light, not as heavy, as you can; if you have this grief to endure, you want at least to come out of it sweeter and stronger than ever before. It seems a pity to let it go for nothing. In the largest sense of the word, you can live for your mother now as truly as you did in the old times; you know very well how she would have had you live."

Polly felt a sense of shame steal over her as she looked at Dr. George's sweet, strong smile and resolute mouth, and she said, with the hint of a new note in her voice:—

"I see, and I will try; but how does one ever learn to live without loving,—I mean the kind of loving I had in my life? I know I can live for my mother in the largest sense of the word, but to me all the comfort and sweetness seems to tuck itself under the word in its 'little' sense. I shall have to go on developing and developing until I am almost developed to death, and go on growing and growing in grace until I am ready to be caught up in a chariot of fire, before I can love my mother 'in the largest sense of the word.' I want to cuddle my head on her shoulder, that's what I want. Oh, Dr. George, how does one contrive to be good when one is not happy? How can one walk in the right path when there does n't seem to be any brightness to go by?"

"My dear little girl," and Dr. George looked soberly out on the ocean, dull and lifeless under the gray October sky, "when the sun of one's happiness is set, one lights a candle called 'Patience,' and guides one's footsteps by that!"

"If only I were not a rich heiress," said Polly next morning, "I dare say I should be better off; for then I simply could n't have gone to bed for two or three months, and idled about like this for another. But there seems to be no end to my money. Edgar paid all the bills in San Francisco, and saved twenty out of our precious three hundred and twelve dollars. Then Mrs. Greenwood's rent-money has been accumulating four months, while I have been visiting you and Mrs. Bird; and the Greenwoods are willing to pay sixty dollars a month for the house still, even though times are dull; so I am hopelessly wealthy,—but on the whole I am very glad. The old desire to do something, and be something, seems to have faded out of my life with all the other beautiful things. I think I shall go to a girls' college and study, or find some other way of getting through the hateful, endless years that stretch out ahead! Why, I am only a little past seventeen, and I may live to be ninety! I do not see how I can ever stand this sort of thing for seventy-three years!"

Mrs. Noble smiled in spite of herself. "Just apply yourself to getting through this year, Polly dear, and let the other seventy-two take care of themselves. They will bring their own cares and joys and responsibilities and problems, little as you realize it now. This year, grievous as it seems, will fade by and by, until you can look back at it with resignation and without tears."

"I don't want it to fade!" cried Polly passionately. "I never want to look back at it without tears! I want to be faithful always; I want never to forget, and never to feel less sorrow than I do this minute!"

"Take that blue-covered Emerson on the table, Polly; open it at the essay on 'Compensation,' and read the page marked with the orange leaf."

The tears were streaming down Polly's cheeks, but she opened the book, and read with a faltering voice:—

"We cannot part with our f—fr—friends. We cannot let our angels go. [Sob.] We do not see that they only go out that archangels may come in. . . . We do not believe there is any force in to-day to rival or re-create that beautiful yesterday. [Sob.] We linger in the ruins of the old tent where once we had shelter. . . . We cannot again find aught so dear, so sweet, so graceful. [Sob.] But we sit and weep in vain. We cannot stay amid the ruins. The voice of the Almighty saith, 'Up and onward for evermore!' . . . The sure years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all sorrow. . . . The man or woman who would have remained a sunny garden flower, with no room for its roots and too much sunshine for its head, by the falling of the walls and the neglect of the gardener is made the banian of the forest, yielding shade and fruit to wide neighborhoods of men."



"Do you see, Polly?"

"Yes, I see; but oh, I was so happy being a garden flower with the sunshine on my head, and I can't seem to care the least little bit for being a banian-tree!"

"Well," said Mrs. Noble, smiling through her own tears, "I fear that God will never insist on your 'yielding shade and fruit to wide neighborhoods of men' unless you desire it. Not all sunny garden flowers become banian-trees by the falling of the walls. Some of them are crushed beneath the ruins, and never send any more color or fragrance into the world."

"The garden flower had happiness before the walls fell," said Polly. "It is happiness I want."

"The banian-tree had blessedness after the walls fell, and it is blessedness I want; but then, I am forty-seven, and you are seventeen!" sighed Mrs. Noble, as they walked through the orange orchard to the house.



CHAPTER XIV.

EDGAR DISCOURSES OF SCARLET RUNNERS.

One day, in the middle of October, the mail brought Polly two letters: the first from Edgar, who often dashed off cheery scrawls in the hope of getting cheery replies, which never came; and the second from Mrs. Bird, who had a plan to propose.

Edgar wrote:—

. . . "I have a new boarding-place in San Francisco, a stone's throw from Mrs. Bird's, whose mansion I can look down upon from a lofty height reached by a flight of fifty wooden steps,—good training in athletics! Mrs. Morton is a kind landlady and the house is a home, in a certain way,—

"But oh, the difference to me 'Twixt tweedledum and tweedledee!

"There is a Morton girl, too; but she neither plays nor sings nor jokes, nor even looks,—in fine, she is not Polly! I have come to the conclusion, now, that girls in a house are almost always nuisances,—I mean, of course, when, they are not Pollies. Oh, why are you so young, and so loaded with this world's goods, that you will never need me for a boarder again? Mrs. Bird is hoping to see you soon, and I chose my humble lodging on this hill-top because, from my attic's lonely height, I can watch you going in and out of your 'marble halls;' and you will almost pass my door as you take the car. In view of this pleasing prospect (now, alas! somewhat distant), I send you a scrap of newspaper verse which prophesies my sentiments. It is signed 'M. E. W.,' and Tom Mills says whoever wrote it knows you."

WHEN POLLY GOES BY.

'T is but poorly I 'm lodged in a little side-street, Which is seldom disturbed by the hurry of feet, For the flood-tide of life long ago ebbed away From its homely old houses, rain-beaten and gray; And I sit with my pipe in the window, and sigh At the buffets of fortune—till Polly goes by.

There 's a flaunting of ribbons, a flurry of lace, And a rose in the bonnet above a bright face, A glance from two eyes so deliriously blue The midsummer seas scarcely rival their hue; And once in a while, if the wind 's blowing high, The sound of soft laughter as Polly goes by.

Then up jumps my heart and begins to beat fast. "She 's coming!" it whispers. "She 's here! She has passed!" While I throw up the sash and lean breathlessly down To catch the last glimpse of her vanishing gown, Excited, delighted, yet wondering why My senses desert me if Polly goes by.

Ah! she must be a witch, and the magical spell She has woven about me has done its work well, For the morning grows brighter, and gayer the air That my landlady sings as she sweeps down the stair; And my poor lonely garret, up close to the sky, Seems something like heaven when Polly goes by.

"P. S. Tony has returned to the university. He asked after the health of the 'sunset-haired goddess' yesterday. You 'd better hurry back and take care of me! No, joking aside, don't worry about me, little missionary; I 've outgrown Tony, and I hope I don't need to be reformed oftener than once a year.

"Yours ever, EDGAR.

"P. S. No. II. I saw you twice after—you know—and I was dumb on both occasions. Of all people in the world I ought to have been able to say something helpful to you in your trouble, I, who lived with you and your dear mother through all those happy months before she left us. It will be just the same when I see you again: I shall never be able to speak, partly, I suppose, because I am a man, or on the road to becoming one. I know this is making you cry; I can see the tears in your eyes across all the distance; but it is better even that you should cry than that you should think me cold or unmindful of your sorrow. Do you know one of the sacred memories of my life? It is that, on that blessed night when your mother asked me to come and live under her roof, she said she should be glad to feel that in any sudden emergency you and she would, have a near friend to lean upon. There was a 'royal accolade,' if you like! I felt in an instant as if she had bestowed the order of knighthood upon me, and as if I must live more worthily in order to deserve her trust. How true it is, Polly, that those who believe in us educate us!

"Do you remember (don't cry, dear!) that night by the fireside,—the night when we brought her out of her bedroom after three days of illness,—when we sat on either side of her, each holding a hand while she told us the pretty romance of her meeting and loving your father? I slipped the loose wedding ring up and down her finger, and stole a look at her now and then. She was like a girl when she told that story, and I could not help thinking it was worth while to be a tender, honorable, faithful man, to bring that look into a woman's face after eighteen years. Well, I adored her, that is all I can say; and I can't say even that, I have to write it. Don't rob me, Polly, of the right she gave me, that of being a 'near friend to lean upon.' I am only afraid, because you, more than any one else, know certain weaknesses and follies of mine, and, indeed, pulled me out of the pit and held me up till I got a new footing. I am afraid you will never have the same respect for me, nor believe that a fellow so weak as I was could be strong enough to lean upon. Try me once, Polly, just to humor me, won't you? Give me something to do,—something hard! Lean just a little, Polly, and see how stiff I 'll be,—no, bother it, I won't be stiff, I'll be firm! To tell the truth, I can never imagine you as 'leaning;' though they say you are pale and sad, and out of sorts with life. You remind me of one of the gay scarlet runners that climb up the slender poles in the garden below my window. The pole holds up the vine at first, of course, but the vine keeps the pole straight; not in any ugly and commonplace fashion, but by winding round, and round about it, and hanging its blossoms in and out and here and there, till the poor, serviceable pole is forgotten in the beauty that makes use of it.

"Good-by, little scarlet runner! You will bloom again some day, when the storm that has beaten you down has passed over and the sky is clear and the sun warm. Don't laugh at me, Polly!

"Always yours, whether you laugh or not,

"EDGAR."

"P. S. No. III. I should n't dare add this third postscript if you were near enough to slay me with the lightning of your eye, but I simply wish to mention that a wise gardener chooses young, strong timber for poles,—saplings, in fact! Mr. John Bird is too old for this purpose. Well seasoned he is, of course, and suitable as a prop for a century-plant, but not for a scarlet runner! I like him, you know, but I 'm sure he 'd crack if you leaned on him; in point of fact, he 's a little cracked now! E. N."

The ghost of a smile shone on Polly's April face as she folded Edgar's letter and laid it in its envelope; first came a smile, then a tear, then a dimple, then a sob, then a wave of bright color.

"Edgar is growing up so fast," she thought, "I shall soon be afraid to scold him or advise him, and

"'What will poor Robin do then, poor thing?'

"Upon my word, if I caught him misbehaving nowadays, I believe I should hesitate to remonstrate with him. He will soon be capable of remonstrating with me, at this rate. He is a goose,—oh, there 's no shadow of doubt as to that, but he 's an awfully nice goose."

Mrs. Bird's letter ran thus:—

"MY DEAREST POLLYKINS:——We have lived without you just about as long as we can endure it. The boys have returned to school and college. Mr. Bird contemplates one more trip to Honolulu, and brother John and I need some one to coddle and worry over. I have not spoken to you of your future, because I wished to wait until you opened the subject. It is too late for you to begin your professional training this year, and I think you are far too delicate just now to undertake so arduous a work; however, you are young, and that can wait for a bit. As to the story-telling in the hospitals and asylums, I wish you could find courage and strength to go on with that, not for your own sake alone, but for the sake of others.

"As I have told you before, the money is set aside for that special purpose, and the work will be carried on by somebody. Of course I can get a substitute if you refuse, and that substitute may, after a little time, satisfy the impatient children, who flatten their noses against the window-panes and long for Mias Pauline every day of their meagre lives. But I fear the substitute will never be Polly! She may 'rattle round in your place' (as somebody said under different circumstances), but she can never fill it! Why not spend the winter with us, and do this lovely work, keeping up other studies if you are strong enough? It will be so sweet for you to feel that out of your own sadness you can comfort and brighten the lives of these lonely, suffering children and these motherless or fatherless ones. It will seem hard to begin, no doubt; but new life will flow in your veins when you take up your active, useful work again. The joyousness that God put into your soul before you were born, my Polly, is a sacred trust. You must not hide it in a napkin, dear, or bury it, or lose it. It was given to you only that you should share it with others. It was intended for the world at large, though it was bestowed upon you in particular. Come, dear, to one who knows all about it,—one whom you are sweet enough to call

"YOUR FAIRY GODMOTHER."

"Mrs. Noble," said Polly, with a sober smile, "the Ancon sails on the 20th, and I am going to sail with her."

"So soon? What for, dear?"

"I am going to be a banian-tree, if you please," answered Polly.



CHAPTER XV.

LIFE IN THE BIRDS' NEST.

Polly settled down in the Birds' Nest under the protecting wing of Mrs. Bird, and a very soft and unaccustomed sort of shelter it was.

A room had been refurnished expressly for the welcome guest, and as Mrs. Bird pushed her gently in alone, the night of her arrival, she said, "This is the Pilgrim Chamber, Polly. It will speak our wishes for us."

It was not the room in which Polly had been ill for so many weeks; for Mrs. Bird knew the power of associations, and was unwilling to leave any reminder of those painful days to sadden the girl's new life.

As Polly looked about her, she was almost awed by the dazzling whiteness. The room was white enough for an angel, she thought. The straw matting was almost concealed by a mammoth rug made of white Japanese goatskins sewed together; the paint was like snow, and the furniture had all been painted white, save for the delicate silver lines that relieved it. There were soft, full curtains of white bunting fringed with something that looked like thistle-down, and the bedstead had an overhanging canopy of the same. An open fire burned in the little grate, and a big white and silver rattan chair was drawn cosily before it. There was a girlish dressing-table with its oval mirror draped in dotted muslin; a dainty writing-desk with everything convenient upon it; and in one corner was a low bookcase of white satinwood. On the top of this case lay a card, "With the best wishes of John Bird," and along the front of the upper shelf were painted the words: "Come, tell us a story!" Below this there was a rich array of good things. The Grimms, Laboulaye, and Hans Christian Andersen were all there. Mrs. Ewing's "Jackanapes" and Charles Kingsley's "Water-Babies" jostled the "Seven Little Sisters" series; Hawthorne's "Wonder-Book" lay close to Lamb's "Tales from Shakespeare;" and Whittier's "Child-Life in Prose and Poetry" stood between Mary Howitt's "Children's Year" and Robert Louis Stevenson's "Child's Garden of Verses."