SHE SAT OBEDIENTLY STILL

SWEET P’S

By
JULIE M. LIPPMANN

Author of “Miss Wildfire,” “Dorothy Day,” etc.

ILLUSTRATED BY IDA WAUGH

PHILADELPHIA
THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY
MCMII

Copyright 1902 by The Penn Publishing Company

Published August 5, 1902

TO MY LITTLE FRIEND
NATALIE WILSON

Contents

Sweet P’s

CHAPTER I
MISS CISSY’S PLAN

“There now! You’re done!” exclaimed Hannah, the nurse, giving Priscilla an approving pat and looking her over carefully from head to heels to see that nothing was amiss. “Now you’ll please to sit in this chair, like a little lady, and not stir, else you’ll rumple your pretty frock and then your mamma will be displeased, for she will want you to look just right before all the company down-stairs. Your grandpapa and grandmamma, and uncles and aunts, and Cousin Cicely—all the line folks who have come to take dinner with you and bring you lovely birthday presents. So up you go!”

Priscilla suffered herself to be lifted into the big armchair without a word and then sat obediently still, watching Hannah, as she bustled about the nursery “tidying up” as she called it.

Priscilla was a very quiet little girl, with great, solemn brown eyes, a small, sober mouth and a quantity of soft, bright hair that had to be brushed so often it made her eyes water just to think of it.

This was her eighth birthday. Now, when strangers asked her, as they always did, “how old she was” she could reply “Going on nine,” but she would still be compelled to give the same old answer to their next familiar question of, “And have you any brothers and sisters?” for Priscilla was an only child.

She sometimes wondered what they meant when they shook their heads and murmured, “Such a pity! Poor little thing!” for when Theresa, the parlor-maid, whom, by the way, Priscilla did not like very much, came up to the nursery and saw all her wonderful toys and the new frocks and hats and coats that were continually being sent home to her, she always said sharply and with a curl of the lip: “My! But isn’t she a lucky child! It must be grand to be such a rich little thing!” For how can one be “a pity” and “lucky” at the same time? and “a poor little thing” and a “rich little thing” at once?

Priscilla did not like to enquire of her mamma or Hannah about it, for she had once been very sick with a pain in her head, and the doctors had come, and she was in bed for a long time, and after that she had been told not to ask questions. And whenever she sat, as she loved to do, very quietly on the nursery couch, trying to puzzle things out for herself, Hannah would come and bid her “stop her studyin’” and go and play with her dolls, explaining that “little girls never would grow big and strong and beautiful like their Cousin Cicely if they sat still all the time and bothered their brains about things they couldn’t understand.” So it was not as hard for Priscilla as it might have been for some other little girls to “sit still like a lady” in the big armchair, and she was just beginning to have “a nice time with her mind” when there was a knock upon the door and James the butler, announced in his grand, deep voice, “Dinner is served. And your mamma says as ’ow she wishes you to come down, miss.”

She waited for Hannah to lift her to the floor, bade her good-bye very politely and then tripped daintily down the long halls and softly carpeted staircases to the dining-room, where there was a great stir and murmur of voices and what seemed to Priscilla a vast crowd of people. She knew them all well, of course; grandpapa and grandmamma; Uncle Arthur Hamilton, who was the husband of Aunt Laura; Uncle Robert and Aunt Louise Duer; dear Cousin Cissy, and her papa and mamma. They were all very old and familiar friends, but when they were collected together they seemed strange and “different” and frightened her very much. Her heart always beat exceedingly fast as she moved about from one to the other saying, “Yes, aunt” and “No, uncle,” so many times in succession. When she entered the room now the hum of voices suddenly stopped and then, the next instant, broke out afresh and louder than ever.

“Dear child! Why, I do believe she’s grown!”

“Bless her heart, so she has!”

“But she doesn’t grow stout.”

“Nor rosy.”

“Come, my pet, and kiss grandpapa!”

“What a big girl grandmamma has got! Eight years old! Just fancy!”

“Do let me have her for a moment. I must have a kiss this second.”

Priscilla heaved a deep sigh under the lace of her frock at which, to her embarrassment, all the company laughed and dear Cousin Cicely said:

“She’s bored to death with all our attention and I don’t wonder. It is a nuisance to have to kiss so many people. There, Priscilla darling, you shall sit right here, next to Cousin Cissy, and no one shall bother you any more.”

Dinner down here in the big dining-room was always a very slow and tiresome affair in Priscilla’s estimation. She liked her own nursery-dinner best, which she ate in the middle of the day, with Hannah sitting by to see that the baked potatoes were well done and the beef rare enough. This “down-stairs-dinner” to-night was no less long and wearisome than usual, but at last it was done and then Priscilla was carried in state to the drawing-room upon the shoulder of tall Uncle Arthur Hamilton, and at the head of a long procession of laughing and chattering relations who, she knew, would stand around in a great, embarrassing circle and watch her as she examined the beautiful birthday gifts they had brought her.

And behold! There was a large table in the middle of the room, and it was covered with a white cloth and piled high with wonderful things. Dolls that walked and dolls that talked; books and games and music-boxes. A doll’s kitchen and a doll’s carriage; a little piano with “really-truly” white and black ivory keys, and all sorts and sizes of fine silk, and velvet boxes containing gold chains and rings and pins, with pretty glittering stones.

Uncle Arthur lifted Priscilla from his shoulder and set her down upon the floor before the table, where she stood in silence, looking wistfully at her new treasures, but not quite knowing what to do about them.

“See this splendid dolly, Priscilla! She can say ever so many French words. Don’t you want to hear her?”

“Listen to this lovely music-box, Priscilla! What pretty tunes it can play!”

“Don’t you want me to hang this beautiful chain around your neck, Priscilla? It will look so pretty on your white dress.”

Priscilla gazed from one thing to another, as they were thrust before her and tried to be polite, as Hannah had told her to be, but she felt dizzy and bewildered and could only stand still, clasping and unclasping her hands in front of her.

“Why, I don’t believe she cares for them at all,” said Aunt Louise in a surprised and disappointed tone.

“Embarrassment of riches, perhaps,” suggested Uncle Robert, her husband.

“Here, Priscilla, dear,” broke in Aunt Laura. “See this wonderful new dolly that can walk! Now, you must certainly play with her. Why, when I was a little girl I would have been delighted if my uncles and aunts had given me such splendid things! I would not have stood, as you are doing, and looked as if I did not care for them.”

Priscilla obediently took the accomplished dolly from her Aunt Laura’s hands and held it loosely in her arms, but she did not make any attempt to “play with her prettily.” Aunt Laura frowned.

Grandmamma came forward and passed her arm about Priscilla’s waist. “Our dear little girl ought to be very happy with so many people to love her,” she said, softly. Somehow her tone, kind as it was, made Priscilla feel she was being naughty because she was not so happy as grandmamma thought she ought to be. She would have liked to be obedient and to please her relations, but if she was not doing so by being very proper, and saying, “Yes, aunt,” and “No, uncle,” in answer to their questions, she did not know what else they wanted. It puzzled and bewildered her, and then the first thing she knew, the dolly had fallen from her arms to the floor with a crash, where it lay foolishly kicking its legs and sawing the air with its arms, while she herself was sobbing big tears over her nice clean dress in a way that she knew would most dreadfully provoke Hannah.

In a twinkling she was in her mother’s arms, and there was a great stir and murmur of voices about her. No one could understand what was the matter.

“She must be sick,” observed Aunt Laura.

“Perhaps something about the doll hurt her—a pin in its clothes maybe,” suggested Aunt Louise.

“Doesn’t she like toys?” asked Uncle Robert.

“We grown-ups frighten her, poor youngster. There are a good many of us, you know, and you are not all as handsome as I am,” laughed Uncle Arthur, mischievously, “are they, Priscilla?”

“Well, she certainly is an odd child not to be perfectly delighted with so many nice things. When I was a little girl——” reiterated Aunt Laura.

But just then Hannah appeared at the door and Priscilla’s mother murmured in her ear, “Say ‘Good-night all,’ my darling, ‘and thank you for giving me such a happy birthday.’”

“Good-night all, and thank you for giving me such a happy birthday,” whispered Priscilla with a sobbing catch in her voice.

“Don’t mention it,” responded Uncle Arthur, bowing low.

And then Hannah led her off to bed.

But that was by no means the end of her birthday, although she thought it was. Long after she was safely asleep in her little brass bed the grown-up people down-stairs were still talking about her. It seemed so remarkable to them that she had not shown more interest in the beautiful things they had prepared for her.

“Priscilla was never a very demonstrative child,” said her mother a little sadly, as if she were excusing her.

“But her heart is in the right place, nevertheless,” her father declared.

“Oh, it isn’t that,” broke in Aunt Laura. “She is a dear little girl, of course, but—all I mean is, she doesn’t act as a child ought to act; as a healthy child ought to act. She ought to be full of spirits, jumping about and laughing and playing. Now when I was a little girl——”

“I don’t think you quite understand Priscilla, dear Aunt Laura,” a bright young voice interrupted quickly. “She is naturally a quiet, timid little thing. She would never be boisterous, but you are right in this, that she doesn’t act as a child of her age might be expected to act, and the reason is, she is lonely. She has never known other children. She has never learned to play. Now these presents here are all very fine in their way, but they do not really interest her, because she does not know how to use them.”

“But dear me,” observed Aunt Laura, “why doesn’t somebody teach her? I wound up the walking-doll for her myself——”

Miss Cicely smiled. “I do not mean that,” she replied. “You couldn’t teach her and I couldn’t, because—we’ve forgotten how. The only one who could teach her would be a little girl of about her own age; a playmate. Believe me, the best present we could give Priscilla would be a companion; a flesh-and-blood little girl who could share her pretty things, and who would teach her how to enjoy them.”

“Dear me!” exclaimed Aunt Laura. “What a very curious creature you are, Cicely. Give Priscilla a present of a ‘flesh-and-blood little girl!’ ‘A playmate of about her own age!’ Fancy!”

“I know you all think I am too young to know anything about bringing up children,” continued Miss Cissy, “and you all, being older, are very much wiser than I am. But I remember when I was a little girl——”

“Stop right there, Cicely,” interrupted Uncle Arthur. “No one in this family but your Aunt Laura has any right to remember when she was a little girl.”

Pretty Cicely pretended to frown at him, but her merry eyes laughed in spite of themselves, though she went on at once: “I was the only child in the family then, just as Priscilla is now, and it was a very lonesome position, I assure you, so I can sympathize with her. I used to long and long for the chance to romp and play with other children of my own age, but I was always surrounded by a lot of servants whose business it was to see that I was very sedate and proper and who were made to feel that I was altogether too important and elegant a little personage to be allowed to associate with the rest of the world. So I saw from afar other children having jolly times and I had to be contented, myself, with my fine playthings and splendid clothes. They did not at all content me. I knew then, just as Priscilla does now, that such things cannot make one happy. Children are like grown-up people in this: that they are never really healthy or happy until they share their good things with some one else.”

“Hear! Hear!” cried Uncle Arthur, clapping his hands approvingly.

Cicely’s whole face was aglow with earnestness and hope as she concluded: “There! now, I have had my say and I am sorry it has been such a long one, but I simply had to speak out, you know.”

“But think of the chances there are of Priscilla’s catching chicken-pox and measles and influenza, if she plays with other children,” suggested Aunt Louise anxiously.

“Children nowadays are so shamefully ill-behaved. They are regular little ruffians. Fancy how wretched it would be if Priscilla caught their horrid habits and became pert and forward and unmannerly,” added Aunt Laura.

Cicely nodded brightly. “Yes, of course that is so,” she admitted, “but on the other hand, fancy how splendid it would be if Priscilla played with other children and caught happiness and health from them, and generosity and kindness and sympathy. Good things are catching as well as bad, don’t you think they are, Aunt Laura?”

This time Uncle Arthur did not cry “Hear! Hear!” but he came straight over to where Cicely sat and took her hand in his.

“Cissy, my dear,” he said, quite seriously, “let me congratulate you. You are the wisest member of the family, by all odds and,” with a twinkle in his eye, “for your sake I am glad I married your Aunt Laura. If Priscilla turns out as well as you have done the Duers will have no cause to be ashamed of their two representatives—even though they are ‘only girls.’”

But just here Priscilla’s mother spoke up:

“I wonder what your plan is, Cissy, dear,” she said. “We are anxious, of course, to do whatever is for Priscilla’s good and I can see that she may be lonely, living so entirely with older people, but—— Do you think a kindergarten——”

“No, dear Aunt Edith, that is not at all what I mean,” Cicely broke in quickly. “What I mean is, that Priscilla ought to have a playmate—a child—to live right here in the house with her; one who would rouse her up and keep her from growing moody and oversensitive. A little girl who would share her good things with her and to whom Priscilla would have to give up and give in once in a while. Each would learn from the other and I’m sure you would see that Priscilla would improve directly, in health and in every other way. Please, please, Aunt Edith, try my plan. I assure you it would work like a charm, if we got the right child and gave the experiment time.”

“We will!”

It was Priscilla’s father who spoke and, of course, his word settled the matter at once. But now the question arose where was “the right child” to be found? It came over Cicely with a sudden shock, that nothing less than a little cherub right out of the sky would suit all these extremely particular people, for no mere human child could possibly fulfil all their requirements.

Aunt Louise would insist upon her never, by any chance, being sick. Aunt Laura would demand that she always be perfectly quiet and faultlessly well-behaved. Aunt Edith would wish her to be older than Priscilla so Priscilla could rely upon her, and grandmamma desired her to be younger than Priscilla so Priscilla could learn to be self-reliant: and so it went on.

“As far as I can see, Cicely,” spoke up Uncle Arthur, teasingly, “this scheme of yours is first-rate! Quite as good, for instance, as the well-known recipe for cooking a hare, which begins ‘first catch your hare.’ In this case it is: first catch your child. It is clearly your place to produce the prodigy. Now then, my dear, let’s see what sort of a marvel you can discover. It will have to be a superfine article to be fit to associate with the great and only Hope (but one, that’s you) of the Duer family.”

“I tell you what it is,” suggested Cicely. “Let’s all try to find one. And the best, by common consent, shall be Priscilla’s playmate. Is it a bargain?”

There was a great chorus of “Yesses”; a lot of hand-shaking and laughing and fun, and very shortly after the company went home, while up-stairs Priscilla slept peacefully on in her pretty brass bed, never dreaming of the curious birthday present she was to receive in the course of the next few days.

CHAPTER II
“CASH ONE-HUNDRED-AND-FIVE”

When Miss Cicely Duer made up her mind to do a thing, she generally succeeded in doing it and she had determined to prove that her plan was a good one. So, first of all, she set to work putting the family in good humor. “For,” she said to herself, “they are ever so much more likely to be reasonable if they are in a cheerful frame of mind.” So she straightway wrote out a number of very elegant invitations bidding Grandpapa and Grandmamma Duer, Uncle Robert and Aunt Louise Duer, Uncle Arthur and Aunt Laura Hamilton, Uncle Elliot and Aunt Edith Duer, and Father and Mother Duer, “to come to Priscilla’s unbirthday party on Thursday afternoon, February 10th, at three o’clock and to bring with them, each and every couple, a little girl not over twelve years of age and not under six. The grandpapa and grandmamma or uncle and aunt bringing the nicest little girl will receive a prize. R.S.V.P.”

The invitations were sent out promptly and the answers came in without delay. Not one member of the family sent a regret: every one was “Pleased to accept Miss Cicely Duer’s kind invitation to Miss Priscilla Duer’s unbirthday party,” etc., etc.

“It is just like the Queen and Alice,” laughed Miss Cicely merrily, but her face grew sober as she thought of the search she would probably have before she could get anything like the right sort of little girl “to set before the king,” for the right sort of little girl doesn’t grow on every bush and Miss Cicely knew it, and even if it did its parents would not be likely to want to give it away.

“I shall not insist on her being pretty, of course, but she mustn’t be utterly hideous,” the young lady thought. “I don’t want her to be a goody-goody little prig but I can’t possibly have a young demon. Oh, dear me! Suppose I cannot find a child at all and have to go to the party without my share of small girl! How they will poke fun at me! It would be another case of

“‘Smarty, Smarty gave a party,

Nobody came but Smarty, Smarty.’”

Her mind was so full of her mission, that one day while she was shopping she found herself replying to a salesman before whose counter she stood, “Yes, please. I want one between six and twelve. Truthful and not too mischievous,” and she only realized her mistake when he paused in measuring off the yards of silk she had selected and looked at her as if he thought she was mildly insane and ought to be carefully guarded.

Miss Cicely blushed furiously and tried to hide her embarrassment with a laugh. The shopman laughed too and Miss Cicely, to explain her absurd blunder, confided to him that she was really looking for a little girl between six and twelve years of age who was truthful and not too mischievous, and did they keep any of the sort in stock?

The salesman laughed again.

“Why, yes, madam, we do,” he replied. “Most of them are somewhat older than you want, to be sure, but we have one, at least right here now, that, come to think of it, ought to just fill the bill. Here! Cash! Cash one-hundred-and-five! Cash! Cash!”

As the salesman said no more Miss Cicely concluded he had merely replied to her joking question with a joking answer. He made out her bill-of-sale and placed it with her yards of silk and then again rapped upon his counter with the blunt end of his lead-pencil, repeating: “Cash! One-hundred-and five! Here, Cash!”

Miss Cicely felt vaguely disappointed. Of course she had known that, even in such a great department store as this, they did not have little girls on sale, but the shopman’s manner and his reply to her laughing question had been so serious that, for a flash, she had really thought he was in earnest when he said he thought they had one that might “just fill the bill.”

“It was very clever of him to carry out the joke so completely, any one would have thought him in earnest; but—well,—Miss Cicely was disappointed. She had searched and searched and not even the wee-est sample of a nice little girl had she been able so far to find. And Thursday was the day after to-morrow!

“Dear, dear!” she mused, “what in the world shall I do? The only place I haven’t tried is ‘The Home for Friendless Children’ and I purposely avoided it because I knew grandmamma and the aunts would fly there the first thing, and I thought I’d be superior and discover something quite original. Well, I suppose it serves me right! and my pride ought to go before a fall. But there’s nothing left but an institution evidently! Oh, me! I wonder if there would be a presentable little waif at the Orphan Asylum? Positively I must go there at once and see. How long one has to wait at these shops! Why doesn’t that Cash come?”

Miss Cicely grew almost irritable as she thought of her defeat. She had quite given up the idea of taking the prize at the contest she herself had arranged, but she could not face the ridicule that she knew would be heaped upon her by the family if, after all her fine talk, she failed to “produce” a “specimen” at all. Oh, dear! Why didn’t that Cash——

“Cash! Cash! One hundred-and-five!” called the salesman a third time.

A very thin, small arm was thrust forward toward the counter from between Miss Cicely and the crowding shopper next to her and a very small breathless voice replied:

“Yes, sir! Here, sir! Cash one-hundred-and-five, sir!”

The salesman nodded.

“This is the one I was speaking about, madam,” he said turning to Miss Cicely and indicating the arm and the voice just beside her.

Miss Cissy bent her head and looked down. There, at her elbow, almost crushed flat by the crowd, and breathless with running, stood a little errand-girl. She could not have been more than ten years old, but her great anxious eyes and the little grown-up furrow between her brows made her appear much older. Miss Cissy saw her small hand tremble as she handed the salesman her basket, and noticed, also in a flash, that it was a clean hand and that the shabby-sleeve through which it was thrust, was clean also. Miss Cicely moved to make room for the mite of a business-woman. The business-woman looked up—and the next moment Miss Cicely had put an arm about her.

“So you are Cash one-hundred-and-five?” she inquired, kindly drawing her to her side.

The child nodded, murmuring, “Yes’m,” and shoved her basket toward the salesman who pretended to busy himself putting the silk and bill-of-sale into it.

“And how old are you, I wonder?” pursued Miss Cissy.

“Ten, ’m,” answered Cash, feeling worried at these unbusinesslike interruptions, but trying not to let the fine lady see it.

“And your name is——?”

“Ca—I mean Polly—Polly Carter please, ’m.”

“Polly is one of our best cash-girls, madam,” put in the salesman quietly. “I don’t know what we’d do without Polly. She’s so quick and ready, we all try to get her to carry to the desk for us, and that’s why she didn’t come at my first call. She wasn’t loitering. She was just rushed with business. That’s what comes of being reliable and popular. Polly can always be trusted and she’s never cross.”

“Why, that is a royal recommendation!” said Miss Cissy approvingly. “Now, I wonder how it happens that Polly is a cash-girl? Hasn’t she anybody to take care of her? No father or mother?”

MISS CICELY HAD HER ARM AROUND HER

“They’re dead, ’m,” answered Polly promptly. “I have a big sister and she used to take care of me and send me to school. She worked here. She was behind a counter. And she did needlework besides, oh, beautiful needlework! but she got hurted last winter run over by a truck, and both her legs were under the wheels and—so now—I take care of her, and the s’ciety lets me ’cause I study when I’m through here, and sister, she teaches me and I’m never sick and it’s nec’ary, ’cause sister can’t do anything but her needlework now.”

Miss Cissy’s arm tightened about the waist of the little bread-winner.

“Where does your big sister live?” she asked quietly.

Polly gave the down-town east-side street and number and then reached out for her basket. She felt that she could not spare any more time to her personal affairs in business hours, even for such an elegant customer as this.

“Well, Polly, I’m very glad to have met you,” said Miss Cicely, “and I hope we shall see each other again. Here is a bright, new fifty-cent piece for you. Won’t you take it, please, and buy yourself something with it—whatever you like best.”

It gave Miss Cissy a thrill to see Polly’s face as she took the bit of shining silver; all in a flash it changed from the face of a little careworn woman to that of a dimpled child.

“I’ll get sister a book,” she cried happily. “I thank you ever so much!”

“Why, she’s actually pretty,” thought Miss Cissy and she pictured to herself Cash one-hundred-and-five clad in a neat white frock, with hair cut square round her neck and tied with crisp ribbon-bows over her temples. “She’ll do. Most certainly she’ll do. Now, if I can only get her!” she thought.

She was so entertained by her visions of the imagined Polly that it did not seem a second before the actual one had returned with her bundle and change. Miss Cissy took them from the salesman and, with a twinkle in her eyes, thanked him for helping her to find just the article she wanted. Then she hurried out into the street where her carriage was awaiting her.

It was a long, rough ride over the uneven stones of the down-town streets, but Miss Cissy did not care for little inconveniences. She was too full of hope to mind the jolts and jars that made the coachman grind his teeth. She readily found the tenement in which “big sister” lived and she had no trouble in finding “big sister” herself. The big sister who, by the way, was not, as it happened, big at all, but quite little, in fact, heard Miss Cissy out very patiently. She seemed used to listening to a great deal of talk and to seeing a great many strange, fine ladies, and to not allowing herself to be bewildered by their promises or them. She was extremely quiet and gave no sign of either pleasure or surprise as the splendid plans for Polly’s welfare were unfolded to her. How was she to know that this fine lady was in earnest and would prove as good as her word?

When Miss Cissy had quite finished she said slowly:

“It is very kind of you to offer to help us. It would be a grand thing for me, of course, to go to a hospital and be treated right, and I think your little cousin would like Polly, but—it would be very bad for Polly if, after she had had a taste of easy living, she’d have to go back to the cash-running again and—this,” pointing to the poor room. “I don’t think I’d better risk it for her, miss. Polly is a cheerful little soul, but you can’t tell, it might make her discontented later.”

But Miss Cicely was not one to be easily discouraged. She reassured and she explained, she argued and she urged.

At last big sister spoke.

“I’m bound to tell you this, miss,” she said anxiously. “You say your little cousin doesn’t know how to play—well, by the same token, neither does Polly, I’m afraid. Polly’s always been, as you might say, old for her age, and the last year she’s done nothing but work and wait on me. I’m afraid she’s forgotten how to frolic as children do—ought, I mean. The ‘little mothers,’ as they call them down here, haven’t much time for fun. Not but that she couldn’t learn, you know. And it all might come back to her, for she used to be as playful as a kitten, and there’s lots of life in her yet, poor lamb! But the cash-running has taken it out of her a lot. It might not be a good thing to put a child that has seen so much worry, with your little cousin that hasn’t seen any.”

“I know it—I have thought of that—” interrupted Miss Cissy eagerly,—“but children don’t take things to heart as we older ones are apt to do. I mean they don’t brood over their ills, and I know that after Polly gets rested she’ll forget her worries and be as gay as a lark. I saw it in her face when I gave her a bit of money. She changed, all in a twinkling, and was as plump and jolly as any child need be. Do let her come! I know she’ll be the one chosen for the place and think what it will mean if you can get proper care and treatment. It is possible you might really be cured. Think what it would mean to be really cured!”

Big sister’s eyes filled with tears. “Don’t speak of that, please,” she said hurriedly. “I am trying not to think of it. If I let you have Polly it won’t be because of what I’d get by it, I want you to believe that. It will be for the good that will come to the child herself. But I can’t answer you now anyway. I must think it over. And I must find out if Polly would be willing. Of course I would not tell her just how the case stands, for I don’t want her to know she will be on trial. It would make her ‘show off’ maybe, and then, too, I think Polly’s a dear, but I know there are many children much prettier and more taking than she is. It’s more likely than not that she wouldn’t get the place at all, and then, if she knew, she would be disappointed. I’ll let you know—say, Thursday morning. Will that do? That will give me to-day and to-morrow to consider. I don’t want to do anything hasty that, later, I’d be sorry for.”

“Couldn’t you possibly make it to-morrow?” pleaded Miss Cissy earnestly. “I’ll send a messenger down to you to-morrow. I want time too—I want time to get a few things ready before Thursday and—and—please do!”

Big sister thought it over for a moment. Then she nodded her head assentingly.

“All right, I will, miss, I’ll let you know to-morrow,” she said.

So it was settled and Miss Cicely drove away, if not quite in triumph, at least having gained a partial victory. She knew there would be no difficulty in getting Polly’s dismissal from the store. The firm would be glad to oblige so valuable a customer as Miss Duer, and she “felt it in her bones,” as she said to herself, that she would receive a satisfactory word next day from big sister. And, sure enough, she did. Early Wednesday forenoon her messenger brought back the intelligence that big sister was willing, and so was Polly, and that if Miss Cicely could arrange it with the store it would be all right.

How Miss Cissy did fly around after that! She astonished the superintendent at the store by flashing in upon him, with a demand for Cash one-hundred-and-five, and flashing out again with his consent to take her. Then she astonished Polly by popping her up-stairs into the “Misses’ Furnishing Department” and having her fitted out from head to heels in new clothes. Shiny black shoes and spotless white stockings; a lot of neat underclothes with trimmings at the edges, such as Polly had never even dreamed of before; a “sweet” white frock; a warm outer coat; a big felt hat with ribbons on it, and, last of all, and wonder of wonders! gloves and handkerchiefs and ribbons for her hair! Then off flew Miss Cissy to the hospital to arrange matters for big sister. Then back home again through the evening darkness and just in time to dress for dinner. She had not stopped to think how tired she was, and she did not now, but she was glad when she was at last able to go to her own room and to bed. It had been a long, and busy day.

The next morning she waked with the feeling that great things were to be accomplished, and before she was fairly dressed there was a knock upon her door, and on the threshold stood Polly with the maid who had gone down-town to bring her up. It seemed to Miss Cissy almost like playing dolls again to be washing and dressing this little girl; cutting her hair in a straight line around her neck, tying it with two bits of rosy ribbon over her temples, and slipping on her pretty underclothes and dainty frock.

The anxious look had faded from Polly’s eyes and the anxious furrows had disappeared from between her brows when, at length, she stood before Miss Cicely’s cheval-glass all “booted and spurred and fit for the fight” as her hostess merrily sang. They had a cozy luncheon up-stairs—just Miss Cissy and Polly together—at which Polly was so excited she could hardly eat. It seemed as if it would never be three o’clock and time to go to the party, but at last it was time and then off they rolled in, what seemed to Polly, the most splendid carriage in the world; just exactly as if she were Cinderella herself and Miss Cissy the Fairy-Godmother.

By this time Polly knew about Priscilla, of course, but she did not know about the other children who, like herself, were to be brought to Priscilla’s home, the best to be chosen for Priscilla’s playmate. She just thought she was going to a party and to make a long visit afterwards, for Miss Cicely had decided that if Polly were not voted the best, and another child was selected in her stead she herself would keep the little girl for a while, at least, and in the meantime big sister should be sent to a hospital where she would receive the best of treatment and the kindest of care.

So, when the carriage came to a halt before the great house in which Priscilla lived, Polly’s little heart beat quick with pleasure and excitement. To go to a real party! In brand-new clothes! Why it was just too good to be true! Miss Cicely looked into the bright little face and sparkling eyes and was glad that Polly did not know the real state of the case—that, in fact, her present and, maybe her future, was to depend on the way she behaved at Priscilla’s “unbirthday party.” It might have sobered her happy heart had she known it, for Polly, young as she was, had felt responsibility before, and would have realized what a heavy one lay upon her now. But she did not know and Miss Cicely did not give her the least little bit of a hint.

“I want her to be quite herself—quite natural,” she thought. “That will be the only way to decide the stuff she’s made of, and whether she is really the best or not.”

So Polly and Miss Cissy went hand-in-hand up the broad flight of steps, from the street. A big door was mysteriously opened as soon as they reached the top, and then, as it closed behind them, Polly heard a loud hum of voices, saw a soft flood of light and knew she was really at the party.

CHAPTER III
“THE BEST OF ALL THE GAME”

Miss Cicely herself led Polly up-stairs and into a splendid room, where with her own hands, she unfastened the little girl’s coat and slipped off her hat and gloves. There was a fine young woman present who seemed to Polly to have manners which were ever so much prouder and haughtier than Miss Cissy’s and whose jaunty cap sat like a stiff crown upon her head, while her embroidered apron and white collar and cuffs were the crispest Polly had ever seen, and this dignified personage loftily offered to assist Miss Cicely, but was refused.

“No, thank you, Theresa, I prefer to do it myself,” Polly’s friend replied easily at once, as she smoothed out the wrinkles in Polly’s frock and plucked at the loops of her ribbon-bows. “By the way, are they all here, I wonder?”

“Yes, miss,” Theresa answered. “You’re the last, miss.”

“Then we must hurry,” said Miss Cissy, and her own wraps were cast aside in no time.

She and Polly went down-stairs as they had come up, hand-in-hand. At the foot Miss Cissy stopped long enough to give her little companion one last, careful look and then led her toward the room where all the talking was. As they entered it Polly heard a very tall gentleman say:

“Oho! Here she comes at last! We thought she had deserted. We had been led to believe that it was customary for a hostess to be present to receive her guests, but don’t let a little thing like that trouble you, Cicely. You usually manage to reverse the natural order of things and as your guests are here to receive you, it’s all right.”

Miss Cicely laughed and blushed and then the very tall gentleman suddenly stood extremely erect by the doorway and announced in a loud, solemn voice:

“Miss Duer and—and——”

“Polly Carter,” prompted Miss Cissy.

“And Miss Polly Carter!” echoed the gentleman.

If Polly had been used to children’s parties, this one would have seemed extremely curious to her, for there appeared to be so few children and so many grown-up people. By looking very carefully, one could have discovered five little girls, each of whom was tucked away somewhere behind or beside one of the couples of ladies and gentlemen present. None of the children seemed very glad to be there, and Polly, who herself made the sixth, was beginning to feel dimly disappointed, when Miss Cicely spoke up in her bright, jolly fashion:

“Now, dear people,” she said, “the first thing to do is to introduce these little girls to one another. Grandfather and Grandmother Duer, will you kindly let me present my little guest to yours? This is Polly Carter.”

A youthful-looking, white-haired old lady and gentleman arose solemnly from the far end of the long room, and came forward in a very stately manner, holding a flaxen-braided young person by the hand.

“This is Miss Katie Schorr,” announced Grandmamma Duer, in a voice that trembled a little (though that could hardly have been from age, for her eyes and skin were as young and soft as Polly’s own). “The Superintendent of our Mission Sunday-school was kind enough to introduce us to Miss Katie Schorr. He said she was a good, obedient child, and we believe it.”

Miss Cicely stooped and shook Miss Schorr by the hand in her own cordial way.

“How do you do, Katie dear,” she said. “I’m glad to see you here. I hope you will have a good time. This is Polly Carter. Won’t you two please stand beside me while I receive the other little friends? There, that’s right! Now, Uncle Arthur and Aunt Laura Hamilton, your guest, please.”

The very tall gentleman, Polly had noticed before, sprang up and gallantly assisted a handsome lady from her chair, offering her his arm with a flourish. She refused the arm at once, saying, “Nonsense, Arthur! don’t be absurd!” which Polly thought rather unkind of her. The little girl they brought forward was so pretty that it was delightful to look at her. Her name was pretty, too. Angeline Montague! And she had elegant manners, for when she was introduced to Miss Cissy she curtseyed beautifully, with her right hand upon her heart—or, rather, on the spot where she supposed her heart was.

As she stepped beside Polly and Katie, Polly heard “Aunt Laura” say to Miss Cicely in an undertone:

“Most excellent connections, I assure you. Her mother does my fine sewing. Theresa, up-stairs, recommended her to me. She says they used to have means. But the father—well, he’s in Canada or somewhere. Very pitiful!”

Polly wondered, while “Uncle Robert and Aunt Louise” were bringing up their little guest, why it was pitiful that Angeline’s father was in Canada. She had supposed, from what the “geografy” said about Canada, that it was a real nice place.

“‘One, two, three little Indians!’” hummed Uncle Arthur, as Miss Cicely, with a kind hand on Angeline’s shoulder, placed her next to Polly and Katie. “Now then, next customer!”

“Miss Rosy Hartigan!” announced Uncle Robert, handing forward a very, very shy little girl.

“Her father is an industrious plumber,” explained Aunt Louise in Miss Cissy’s ear. “But his wife died last fall, and the children have no one to look out for them while he is at work.”

Poor Rosy was frightfully alarmed. She set up a violent crying at once, shedding the biggest tears Polly had ever seen, and it took all Miss Cissy’s tact to comfort her.

In the meantime a lady and gentleman called “Aunt Edith” and “Uncle Elliot,” had brought up another little girl whose hair was as black as Polly’s boots, and whose eyes almost snapped with mischief.

“This is Miss Elsie Blair, and she lives at our beautiful Home for Friend—for Children,” explained Aunt Edith. “Mrs. McAdams, the matron, says Elsie is an excellent child.”

“Now, father and mother,” said Miss Cicely, clasping Rosy Hartigan with one hand, and patting the excellent Elsie into line with the other.

“Father” and “Mother,” it appeared, had brought Miss Sarah Findlay, who was twelve, and tall for her age. She was very thin, with not much hair to speak of, and no eyebrows at all. Miss Sarah came from the country and her father was a minister. “She had twelve brothers and sisters,” she confided to Polly.

“Now, I think we have all our party collected together,” said Miss Cissy cheerfully. “Suppose we play London Bridge. Come, Polly and Katie and Angeline! Come, Elsie and Sarah and Rosy! Join hands! Now sing! ‘London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down!’”

No one but Miss Cicely could possibly have managed to make those six little girls feel so at home and so well-acquainted with one another in so short a time. By the end of “London Bridge” they felt as if they had been friends all their lives. Then followed “Oats, peas, beans and barley grows,” and “Drop the handkerchief,” and in all the excitement Polly had no time to wonder where Priscilla was and why she did not come to her own party. After a while Miss Cissy sat down at the piano and played a gay march and then the company was invited out to supper.

Polly and Sarah walked together; Katie Schorr and Angeline Montague made a second couple and Rosy Hartigan and Elsie Blair brought up the rear.

“It’s going off surprisingly well,” remarked Aunt Laura, as the procession filed out into the hall. “They all seem decent children, but of the lot I prefer Angeline Montague. She has such superior manners. After her I should select Cicely’s Polly What’s-her-name.”

“Don’t whistle before you are out of the woods, my dear,” cautioned Uncle Arthur. “The party isn’t over yet.”

In the dining-room the children were reveling in good things to eat. Dainty chicken sandwiches; salad that made one’s mouth water; jelly and cake and candied fruit; bonbons and ice cream, and chocolate served in tall, slender cups, with whipped cream on top, and wee silver spoons in the saucers—spoons that looked as if they were intended for the daintiest of dolls.

“Gorry!” whispered Katie Schorr to Angeline Montague, “isn’t this fine?”

Uncle Arthur, standing in the doorway behind a heavy hanging, took a note-book out of his pocket and jotted something down in it.

At first there was not much chatter. The children were too busy for that, but by and by their tongues were loosened and then, how they did talk!

Rosy Hartigan became so brave that she actually consented to spell her name as the teacher in her school had taught her to do: “R-o, Ro, s-y, sy, Rosy; H-a-r, Har; syHar; RosyHar; T-i, ti; Harti; syHarti; RosyHarti; G-a-n, Gan; tigan; Hartigan; syHartigan; Rosy Hartigan!” At which Miss Cissy clapped her hands and cried: “Good!” but Elsie Blair whispered “Smarty!” in Rosy’s left ear.

Sarah Findlay, fired by Rosy’s success, said her brothers “Knew lots and lots of tricks. They had taught her to make the awfullest cross-eyed face in the world and she’d do it for them if they wanted her to. You just had to pull your mouth down at the corners with your two fingers, like this and then look cross eyed, like this and then——”

Uncle Arthur took out his note-book again and wrote down something in it, though no one saw him do it.

Suddenly Rosy Hartigan gave a piercing shriek and Miss Cissy hurried to her in distress, asking what the trouble was. It seemed that Rosy’s left arm had been most terribly pinched, so that it “hurt like everything,” but when Elsie Blair, who sat on that side of Rosy, was asked if she had pinched her arm, she protested “No, she hadn’t, and if Rosy went and said she had, Rosy was nothing but an old story——”

But Miss Cicely’s gentle hand over her lips smothered the rest of the word and, Rosy being comforted, supper went merrily on. At last, when nobody could possibly eat another mouthful, Miss Cissy said they would all go back into the drawing-room and have more games. So back they went and played “Hunt the slipper” and “A tisket, a tasket” and then a big bag was brought in and they all “grabbed” for presents. After that it was time to go home, but Uncle Arthur insisted on one more game and chose “Forfeits,” which was “the loveliest fun” in the world, for when Miss Cicely held the forfeits over his head he invented the funniest things you ever heard of that the owner must do to redeem them.

Katie Schorr was to take what Miss Cissy gave her without moving a muscle of her face or saying a word, and how could any little girl be expected to succeed in doing such an impossible thing as that when what Miss Cissy gave her was a perfectly darling doll all dressed in blue, which she was to keep for her very own? Why, Katie’s mouth danced right up at the corners and she said “O goody!” before she knew it.

Rosy Hartigan had to spell her name before all the grand ladies and gentlemen (which almost frightened her out of her wits) but she did it and then she got a doll just like Katie’s, only hers was dressed in pink.

Next, Elsie Blair had to “guess” who had pinched Rosy during supper and if she guessed wrong she was to have no doll. So Elsie, very red and shamefaced, guessed right immediately; she “guessed she did it herself” and then she received a doll dressed in red.

Sarah Findlay won her prize by “crossing her heart and promising sure and true, black and blue,” she’d never make her cross-eyed face any more, for Uncle Arthur had known a little girl once who had crossed her eyes just so, in fun, and when she tried she couldn’t get them straight again.

Polly had to tell them all what she wanted most in the whole world, but if Uncle Arthur thought it would be difficult for her to decide, he was mistaken. It did not take her an instant to say: “To have sister get well.” Then she got her doll—and a pat on the head from Uncle Arthur, as well.

But the most curious penalty of all came last. Angeline Montague was to give Miss Cicely what she had in her pocket and no one need ask what it was, for they should never know. So Angeline, very pale and trembling, and after fumbling in her pocket for an instant brought out something which she handed Miss Cissy behind the folds of her dress. Miss Cissy took it with a look so sad and grieved that Polly could have cried to see her. She bent down and whispered a secret in Angeline’s ear and then gave her her doll. That ended the game. They all joined in singing “America” and then the party was over.

While they were up-stairs getting ready to go home the grown-up people were very busy in the drawing-room below. Grandpapa and Grandmamma Duer were sorry Miss Katie Schorr had said, “Gorry!” as, of course, Priscilla’s playmate must be a little lady and ladies do not say “Gorry,” or words like that. Uncle Robert and Aunt Louise thought Rosy Hartigan was a good little girl, but something of a cry-baby and a telltale. Uncle Elliot and Aunt Edith said they could not dream of having Priscilla associate with a child like Elsie Blair who did not tell the truth until she was compelled. Miss Cicely’s father and mother felt that Sarah Findlay’s brothers had taught her more tricks than were necessary to complete Priscilla’s education, so the choice finally lay between Polly Carter and Angeline Montague.

Aunt Laura liked Polly well enough and agreed with the rest that she seemed an unaffected, honest little creature, but it was easy to see that Angeline’s pretty face and beautiful manners had bewitched her as well as the other ladies and that if Miss Cissy had no objection Angeline would be chosen for the place of honor. Miss Cissy was in the dressing-room overseeing the putting on of the children’s hats and wraps and saying good-bye to them before they were taken home. Uncle Arthur said it would be unfair not to wait for her to come down before finally deciding on Angeline. She had been the one to suggest a playmate for Priscilla and he thought she had the best right, next to Uncle Elliot and Aunt Edith, Priscilla’s father and mother, to decide who the playmate should be. Aunt Laura was willing, of course to wait for Cicely, but the more she thought of it the better she was pleased with the idea of Angeline for Priscilla’s companion.

Presently Miss Cissy came down. She listened patiently to everything every one had to say about the children, and she gave particular attention to Aunt Laura’s claim for Angeline, looking so sober meanwhile that her relations were quite sorry for her, for though she did not say a word in Polly’s favor, they gathered that she liked the little girl and was disappointed because Angeline had proved first-choice.

“Well, then,” concluded Aunt Laura briskly, “I suppose we can call it settled that Angeline is to be the one. I’m a pretty good judge of children and from the first I took to her. Your little Polly What’s-her-name is all right, Cicely. I haven’t a word to say against her and if Angeline were not there I should certainly choose her, but, under the circumstances, I think there can be no doubt that Angeline is the child for the place.”

Miss Cissy said nothing. For a moment there was silence. Then Uncle Arthur inquired politely:

“Have any of you ever heard it suggested that appearances are sometimes supposed to be deceitful?”

They all had heard it.

Uncle Arthur nodded. “Very well. Now, have any of you ever heard it mentioned that all is not gold that glitters?”

Aunt Laura broke in with a “Don’t be absurd, Arthur,” but her husband continued without noticing the interruption, “Or that handsome is as handsome does? Good! I see you have. Now, it appears there is still another proverb for you to learn which evidently Laura’s young friend, Miss Angeline, believes to be true and which is that a broken chocolate cup in the pocket is worth two in the saucer.”

Uncle Arthur paused. In a flash there broke out a quick chorus of questions.

“Arthur, what do you mean?” from Aunt Laura.

“Won’t you please explain?” from Uncle Elliot.

And “Is it a joke?” “What is the point?” and “How do you know?” from the rest.

Uncle Arthur waited a moment until the flurry was past. Then he said in a very serious voice and one that was not at all trifling: “I mean, simply, that Miss Angeline Montague is very pretty to look at and that her manners are charming and that it is the greatest of pities that she is not so nice a little girl as she appears to be, but the truth is—I hate to say it—but the truth is——”

“Well, what? Do hurry, please!” urged Aunt Laura.

Miss Cissy drew something out of her handkerchief, and held it in her outstretched palm for them all to see. It was one of Aunt Edith’s pretty chocolate cups broken into fragments.

“Poor little Angeline did it,” she explained sadly. “No one but Uncle Arthur saw the accident and there would have been no great harm done if Angeline had not turned coward and tried to place the blame on some one else. Uncle Arthur watched her closely and saw her slip Polly’s cup off its saucer and put it upon her own. You see, her idea was to have the blame laid on Polly if the accident were discovered and her plan would have succeeded if it had not been for Uncle Arthur, for James missed the cup at once and came and told me that it was gone from the saucer of the little girl I had brought. I was glad to be able to say she was not responsible for it and that Mr. Hamilton knew who was.”

Tears were in Miss Cissy’s eyes as she finished, and Uncle Arthur looked so grieved that Aunt Laura rose and went to him to give his arm a comforting pat. She knew that honorable people never “tell on” other people unless they must and when they have to, it hurts them sadly, so she felt very sorry for Uncle Arthur and for Miss Cicely too, and last and most of all, for Angeline.

So that was how it came about that when the choice of Priscilla’s playmate was put to vote Polly was “unanimously elected.”

“The first’s the worst,

The second’s the same;

The last the best

Of all the game.”

Miss Cissy hummed happily to herself as she ran up-stairs to hug and kiss Cash one-hundred-and-five and explain to her that sister had given her permission to make Priscilla a long, long visit and that she was to begin it right off.

CHAPTER IV
“SWEET P’S”

Up-stairs in the nursery the lamps were lit and a bright fire glowed on the hearth. Hannah was bustling about in her own busy fashion and Priscilla lay cuddled up in the big sleepy-hollow chair with a picture-book in her lap. It was all very quiet and cozy and Little Boy Blue and Mary, Mary Quite Contrary and the rest of the dear Mother Goose people who looked out from their places in the dainty wall-paper, seemed to nod and wink at Priscilla as if they were glad it was their good fortune to be here.

The clock on the mantel-shelf chimed six.

“I wonder what’s keeping James with your supper,” murmured Hannah comfortably. “He’s generally prompt at the stroke o’ six but to-night—— Oh, there he is now!”

Priscilla did not look up from her book as the door-knob turned. She was not hungry and the prospect of James carrying a tray spread with nice things to eat was too familiar to interest her. Poor little Priscilla did not know it, but she was really pining for a change.

The door opened, swung wide upon its hinges and there, on the threshold, stood Miss Cissy clasping a little stranger-girl by the hand. Hannah gave a quick exclamation and Priscilla raised her eyes. The next moment she was in Miss Cissy’s arms.

The little stranger-girl stood by and smiled, while Simple Simon and Miss Muffet, in the wall-paper, quite grinned at each other with satisfaction. It seemed to Polly as if she had stepped right into the middle of a fairy-tale, for surely never was there so wonderful a place as this outside of fairy-land, nor a little princess who was half so fine and delicate.

Miss Cissy beckoned her to come forward saying gaily:

“See, Priscilla, I have brought you a visitor. This is Polly Carter. Won’t you shake hands with her, dear?”

Priscilla shyly put out a frail, soft little hand which Polly grasped in her thin, little chapped one.

“Polly is going to stay all night,” went on Miss Cicely, “and if she has a good time and enjoys herself, and if you get on nicely and like each other, she won’t go home for a while. They will put up a bed for her in your room, right across the way from yours and you can chatter to each other in the morning and be as jolly as you like. Just think what fun it’s going to be, Priscilla! Why, you can have breakfast-parties and dinner-parties and tea-parties together every day at your little table, all by yourselves, and you can show Polly your toys and she can show you new ways of playing with them, and you can keep house and visit and have—oh! lots of good times! And perhaps, if I’m very good, you’ll let me come and join in the sport sometimes, for I think I like your kind of play better than the sort they have down-stairs—I mean, the grown-up people. I wouldn’t tell anybody but you, of course, but it’s sometimes a little—just a little dull down there. But up here! dear me! why there’s no end to the sport you can have up here, if you want to. I don’t believe Polly ever saw anything so funny in all her life as your walking-doll was the other night, Priscilla, when you dropped her on the floor and she lay there on her back, sawing the air with her arms, and kicking.”

Priscilla smiled demurely and drew herself from Miss Cissy’s arm. “I’ll get her now,” she volunteered in a timid whisper. “If you wind her up and put her on the floor she’ll do it again.”

How Polly did laugh to see the fine French lady in such an awkward predicament and seeming to be so indignant about it! Her merry giggle was so irresistible that Priscilla, after a moment, joined in with a soft little chuckle on her own account. Then a music-box was brought out and the Parisian Mademoiselle was set upon her feet and made to walk to its tune. It appeared she could not keep step at all, though at first she flew about very fast trying to do so, but by and by she got discouraged and walked slower and slower, until, at last, she collapsed entirely and fell on the floor with a final wriggle of despair, as if she gave it up as a bad job. Polly’s giggle broke into a laughing shout at this and James, coming in with a huge tray in his arms, almost stumbled over in amazement at the unaccustomed sight and sound of such merriment in the usually quiet nursery.

Priscilla discovered that supper was a very different affair when one did not have to sit and eat it alone. When Hannah served her and Polly to the bread and butter they bit into their slices and compared the impressions made by their teeth. Polly’s arch was wide and shallow with a little uneven place in the centre where one of her front teeth lapped a trifle, and Priscilla’s was narrower but quite exact all around. By biting carefully on one side and another of this first shape they found they could make different figures, new patterns being disclosed by each nibble, a fact which was so amusing that though Priscilla had not been hungry and Polly had thought she had had as much as she could possibly eat down-stairs, they managed to dispose of several slices before they were aware. Hannah shook her head at such “bad table-manners” but Miss Cissy would not have the children disturbed “just for once.” They sipped their creamy milk and ate their fruit and, what she said she used to call “good-for-you pudding” when she was a little girl, with as much relish as if neither of them had tasted a mouthful since morning, and by the end of the meal Polly had told Priscilla about sister and Priscilla had confided to Polly that she did not like to have her hair combed “’cause it pulled so and hurt most aw’fly.”

“That’s ’cause it’s so fine and curly,” explained Polly. “Mine is straight and the tangles come out easy, but I’d rather have yours if I were you. Yours looks like fine silk—the kind ladies buy at the embroidery counter to do fancy-work with. Floss, that’s what they call it. Your hair is just like floss.”

Since Polly appeared to think it was nice to have hair like floss Priscilla felt it might be easier to bear the pulling of the comb. At any rate she made up her mind, then and there, that she would be “as brave as a soldier” after that and show Polly how she could bear pain without a whimper.

Miss Cicely stayed until the supper-table was cleared and the two Sweet P’s, as she called them, were contentedly cutting out paper dolls in the light of the lamp, and then she slipped quietly away down-stairs to join the rest of the family, who were going in to dinner.

Polly passed the evening in a sort of happy dream of delight. The warmth of the cheerful fire, its soft light and the pleasant coziness of the room, were so different from anything she had ever known before that she felt she would certainly wake up, in a minute or so and find it all vanished and herself back in the little room down-town, where the kerosene lamp gave out a sickening odor, and the fire in the stove couldn’t be kept burning after supper was prepared because coal was so high this winter. The wind came in through the chinks of the windows and door in chilling gusts, and even when one cuddled up in bed under the blankets and snuggled next to sister, one hardly got warmed through before morning. And then, to have to get up before it was light, and go shivering about in the dark, groping around blind with sleep, and have to hurry out into the icy, wintry streets to a weary day of cash-running at the store! She was so full of her own thoughts that her scissors had almost snipped the head off the splendid paper lady she was cutting out before she knew it, and Priscilla seeing the narrow escape, gave a little low exclamation of dismay.

“I guess you’re pretty tired, aren’t you?” Hannah asked kindly, coming and standing beside her chair and looking down at her benevolently. Polly nodded, but could not answer in words. The memory of the cold, bare little down-town room had awakened another memory: the memory of sister, and all at once her heart sickened of the warmth and comfort and light here and just turned hungrily to the poorer place where sister was, in longing to go back.

“Come, you two little ladies, it’s time for bed,” cried Hannah briskly. “Now, which one can get her clothes off first? I warrant I know.”

Poor little Priscilla tugged and wrenched in vain; she was not accustomed to do for herself, and Polly stood undressed and clad in her “nightie” before she even had her slippers untied. At sight of her disappointed little face Hannah caught her up in her arms and gave her a good hug, and the next moment all her buttons were unfastened as if by magic. It was an old story to Priscilla to sit before the fire wrapped in her downy bath-robe and have her hair brushed and braided for the night, while Hannah told her stories of kings and queens or repeated the exciting history of “The Little Schmall Rid Hin.” But to Polly it was a new and curious experience which made her forget for the moment the strange, sickening ache in her heart. She thrust her feet out toward the pleasant fire-glow and laughed approvingly when the fox, having planned to “git the little schmall rid hin” and carry her home in a bag to be “biled and ate up, shure, by his ould marm and he” was cleverly fooled by the wonderful biddy and, with his wicked mother, was killed outright when “the pot o’ boilin’ wather came over thim, kersplash,

“And scalted thim both to death

So they couldn’t brathe no more,

An’ the little schmall rid hin lived safe

Just where she lived before.”

Priscilla’s head was fairly nodding by the time prayers were said and Hannah ready to carry her off to bed and tuck her in. But long after she was breathing softly on her pillow, Polly lay awake and thought and thought and thought of sister in her loneliness, at home in the cold and dark, until, at length, she could bear it no longer and the tears came in a flood, quite drenching the fine, embroidered handkerchief Miss Cissy had given her and of whose new crispness she had been so proud.

In a moment Hannah was at her side.

“What is it, honey? Tell Hannah,” she urged very tenderly, as she knelt down and slid her arm under Polly’s head. Then it all came out: about the dreadful ache and longing in her heart and the choking in her throat.

“Why, bless you, you’re homesick and so you are,” explained Priscilla’s nurse encouragingly. “And no wonder at all—not the least in the world. Lots of folks are homesick and they get over it in no time at all, if they just make up their minds to it. Why, think of me! I came over,—away from my father and mother, across the wide sea, when I was but a slip of a girl, not seven years older than you. And think of the gain that’ll come to your sister if you are good and contented here. Why, the hospital doctors will look at her and they’ll say: ‘Now, here is a young woman we must certainly manage to cure whether or not for Miss Cicely Duer says so.’ And the nurses will say the same thing. And they’ll give her a room all to herself with sun coming in at the windows, and there’ll be flowers on the bureau that Miss Cicely and Priscilla’s mamma will send. And her bed will be all soft and white, and the nurses will have on white caps and aprons and cuffs, just spick and spandy and they’ll give her lovely things to eat and then—and then—before you know it almost, sister will be well and walking around as fine as can be. And that will be your doing if you’re a good girl and don’t get mopey and homesick.”

Polly’s eyes were quite dry by the time Hannah paused to take breath. The picture of sister in such pleasant surroundings almost reconciled her to her own good fortune. She saw the sunlight coming in at the windows and the flowers nodding on the bureau and the white-capped nurses hovering round and then, by and by, Hannah’s voice seemed to melt into a gentle drone—the drone of a sleepy fly bobbing against sister’s hospital-room window in the sunlight and then——

Polly opened her eyes to see the sunlight really slanting in at the window of the pretty bedroom in which she and Priscilla had slept. For a moment she lay still, trying to remember where she was and how she came to be in this splendid gold bed, between soft, fleecy blankets and smooth linen. There was another bed just like her own standing against the wall across the room—but the other bed was empty. Then it all came back to her. Priscilla had slept in that other bed. Where was Priscilla?

A sound of splashing and running water seemed to answer her and in another moment Hannah appeared carrying Priscilla wrapped in bath-sheets, fresh from her morning tub.

“Just wait a moment till I have Priscilla dry and then in you go,” threatened Hannah with a pretended frown.

But Polly was not in the least alarmed. She reveled in the warm water and plunged about in the white tub as energetically as if she had been a canary taking a morning dip in a china dish. Then she and Priscilla had breakfast in the nursery, with Peter Pumpkin-Eater and Jack Sprat-Could-Eat-No-Fat looking down at them from the walls and probably wishing they had such delicious milk-toast and cream-of-wheat and poached eggs to feast upon.

Priscilla’s mother came to visit them soon after the meal was over and she proved so sweet and beautiful a lady that Polly felt there was only one person in the whole world who was more wonderful than she and that Miss Cicely was that one. She talked to Priscilla and Polly for a long time and seemed sorry when some one—the haughty Theresa—came to summon her down-stairs and she had to leave them.

Then hats and coats were brought out and the Sweet P’s made ready for a walk. There was not much fun in pacing slowly up the avenue and around the windy paths of the Park. Before they had gone three blocks Polly was stiff and chilly and poor little Priscilla was having the cold shivers inside her fur coat.

“Let’s play las’-tag,” suggested Polly. “Then we can run, and running makes you warm. Why, I used to get as hot as anything at the store, just with running.”

“What’s las’-tag?” asked Priscilla listlessly.

Polly explained. “And I’ll be ‘It’ if you like,” she said. “Now, you run and I’ll try to catch you. Hannah’ll be ‘Hunk.’ One, two, three! Off goes she!”

In no time at all they were both in a glow, their cheeks ruddy and tingling with warmth and their eyes sparkling with fun. Priscilla was delighted and she and Polly las’-tagged each other merrily all the way home. Certainly the hated morning walk was going to be a different affair after this. James could hardly believe his eyes at the change he saw in Priscilla’s appearance when he opened the door to them at one o’clock.

“Why, she looks like another child,” he said to Theresa who was passing through the hall.

Theresa curled her lip.

“You and Hannah may do as you like,” she snapped pettishly, “but nobody’ll get me to wait on any beggar-child—not if I know it. Why couldn’t they have taken that sweet little Angeline Montague, if they must have some one, and not given the place to a common little thing like this Polly-one. I know Angeline’s mother well. I got her the job at Mrs. Hamilton’s and she’s a lady,—I tell you. And Angeline herself is a little angel! Who knows anything about this child they have taken in?” and Theresa tossed her head spitefully.

James pursed his lips as if he were going to whistle. “I don’t know anything about her, that’s certain,” he admitted, “and if you don’t either, Theresa, why, I guess there ain’t any call for you to clap names on her like what you’ve done. After all, she ain’t harming you. Fair play is a jewel. If she don’t interfere with you, you don’t need to interfere with her!”

“Interfere with me!” cried Theresa hotly. “Much you know about it, James Craig. That’s just what she has done, with a vengeance!”

James shrugged his shoulders. “Why, I don’t see what concern it is of yours, if the family chooses to get a companion for Miss Priscilla. You ain’t got to pay for her board and keep.”

“Perhaps I ain’t,” returned Theresa with added sharpness, “but perhaps, on the other hand, I got to pay for the board and keep of somebody else, that she has done out of a rare chance.”

The butler’s eyes opened wide. “You don’t mean to say——” he stammered.

“I don’t mean to say nothing,” the maid retorted quickly. “I just ain’t going to do anything that’s outside my work, that’s all. I respect myself too much to lay a hand to anything I didn’t engage for, and if you and Hannah choose to fetch and carry for strangers from no-one-knows-where, you can do it and welcome! But the more sillies you, that’s all!”

The good-natured James watched the irate woman as she flounced up-stairs and then drew in his breath with a long whistling sound. He thought Theresa was “a terror” and he made up his mind then and there that he would “steer clear of her” in the future.

In the meantime Polly, who was quite unconscious of having given offense to any one in the world and who felt at peace with all men, was astonished and dismayed, as the days went by, to find that Theresa did not like her. At first she did not realize that anything was amiss. The maid seemed to her a very haughty lady whose manners were proud and overbearing to be sure, and not at all gentle and sweet as Priscilla’s mother’s and Miss Cicely’s were, but who was probably, nevertheless, good and kind at heart, like all the rest of the world. Once or twice she brushed roughly against Polly in the halls, but Polly said, “Excuse me,” as sister had taught her to do when she got in any one’s way, and then thought no more about it.

Then, another time, Polly was going down-stairs on an errand for Hannah and just as she reached the second flight Theresa came out of the sitting-room and began to busy herself dusting the top of the baluster-rail. Polly said, “Good-morning!” as politely as she could, but Theresa did not appear to hear her and the next minute Polly’s dress had caught in a nail or something, it could not have been Theresa’s hand, of course, and she was crashing down-stairs, heels over head, bumpety-bump! as hard as she could go. She was so badly frightened that it took her some time to recover herself, but her bruises were not serious and James brought a chocolate spice-cake out of the butler’s pantry, which he said he would give her if she did not cry any more. So she dried her tears and promised she would “look where she walked” after that and was happy again in no time at all.

But before she went up-stairs James whispered in her ear: “Say, I wouldn’t get in Theresa’s way, if I were you. Theresa is—er—nervous and little girls bother her, I guess, and it’s always better when folks is like that to keep yourself to yourself. See?”

CHAPTER V
POLLY’S PLUCK

Angeline Montague did not tell her mother the forfeit she had had to pay to “redeem” the beautiful doll she had brought home from Miss Cicely’s party. In the first place, she conveniently forgot it, and in the second, she always made a point of keeping very still when her mother was in a “tantrum,” and her mother was in a terrible one that day. Something had gone wrong somewhere, for the moment Angeline reached home her mother had caught her by the arm and swung her about roughly, saying: “Ho! So here you are, are you? Then you didn’t get it, did you? And after all the trouble I went to, to teach you how to bow and to hold your tongue and to speak soft and genteel when you did speak! And the money I spent on your clothes, too! I’ve half a mind to beat you well, you great silly. What under the sun your Aunt Theresa’ll do to you, I don’t know—like as not she’ll put you in jail or send you to the reform-school or something. I do declare I never saw such a numb-scull! Where’s your brains, I’d like to know, to let any one else get ahead of you like that?”

Angeline sobbed.

“There now,” continued her mother less harshly. “Quit that, and take off those togs you’ve got on. It makes me just wild to see ’em and think what they cost, and then what a fool you were to let such a chance slip through your fingers.”

Angeline sobbed still more piteously. She knew it was the only way to disarm her mother. After a minute or two the angry woman said: “Hush, hush, I tell you, Angeline, or the neighbors’ll think I’m killing you—and they have enough to say about us already. Besides, you’d better save your tears till your Aunt Theresa comes, for you’ll need ’em then, or I’m mistaken. She ain’t as easy as I am, not by a long sight, and she’ll scold the life out of us both for your foolishness. She’ll probably stop paying for your board and keep into the bargain, and then what’ll become of us, I don’t see. We’ll be turned out into the street, most likely, for I’m two weeks behind with the rent as it is, and goodness knows where I’ll get the money to pay up.”

Angeline’s sobs grew softer. “I did the best I could,” she whimpered. “I never told a livin’ soul my name ain’t Montague or that Aunt Theresa is my aunt, an’ I bowed just like you tol’ me to, an’ I didn’t hardly say annything to annyboddy. I just smiled the way you showed me, as soft as ever I could, an’ Mis’ Hamilton she said I was a sweet little thing. I listened an’ I heard her. I didn’t let noboddy get ahead of me nor nothing. I got the best cakes an’ the biggest orange an’—an’—I would have got a—other things too, but a big man, he was real mean and kept looking!”

“Well, go ’long with you now,” said her mother, whose true name was McGaffey. “Take off those duds or you’ll tear ’em or something an’ then the fat will be in the fire.”

Later that evening when Angeline was in bed her mother had a visitor. It was Theresa, and her angry voice made the little girl quail. She knew Aunt Theresa well and dreaded her, so she pretended to be asleep when her bedroom door was rudely flung open and quick steps came toward her where she lay.