Polly of Lady Gay Cottage. Dowd Emma C.
eagerly placed the key in the lock, and carefully raised the cover.
A folded tissue paper lay on top, which she caught up, and the photograph was disclosed.
“Mamma!” she half sobbed, pressing the picture to her lips.
But Dr. Dudley scarcely noticed her emotion, for the displacement of the card had revealed only an empty box – the letter was gone! He looked across at his wife, and their eyes met in perfect understanding. The moment they had both dreaded was postponed, and they felt a sudden relief. Still, there had been a letter, the Doctor silently reasoned, and sooner or later its contents must be faced.
“See!” Polly was holding before him the portrait of a lovely, girlish woman, with dark, thoughtful eyes and beautiful, curving mouth.
“It looks just like her!” came in tremulous tones. “Isn’t she sweet?” She leaned lightly against her father, drawing a long breath of joy and sorrow.
As he threw his arm about her, the Doctor could feel her efforts to be calm.
“But where’s the letter?” she asked, with sudden recollection, turning from their satisfying praise of the one she loved, to gaze into the empty box. She regarded it disappointedly when she heard the truth.
“Now I shan’t ever know,” she lamented, “whether I have any grandfather or grandmother, or uncles or aunts, – or anybody! And I thought, may be, there’d be some cousins too! But, then,” she went on cheerfully, “it isn’t as if the letter was from somebody I’d ever known. I’m glad it is that that’s lost, instead of this,” clasping the photograph to her heart.
Mrs. Dudley glanced over to her husband. “Better not tell her!” his eyes said, and her own agreed. It seemed that Polly did not dream of what was undoubtedly the case, – that the letter was from her mother, written as a birthday accompaniment to the picture, and giving hitherto withheld information concerning her kindred.
It was far better for Polly’s peace of heart that the probable truth was not even surmised, and presently she carried the photograph up to her own little room, there to feast her eyes upon the well-remembered face until time was forgotten.
CHAPTER II
LEONORA’S WONDERFUL NEWS
“
Polly!”
Dr. Dudley waited at the foot of the short staircase. He had just come in from an early morning visit to a hospital patient.
“Yes, father,” floated down to him, followed by a scurry of light feet in the corridor overhead.
Directly Polly appeared at the top of the flight, one side of her hair in soft, smooth curls, the other a mass of fluffy waves.
“Leonora sent word for you to come over ‘just as soon as you possibly can,’” smiled the Doctor. “She has something to tell you.”
“I don’t see what it can be,” replied Polly. “Do you know, father?”
“You wouldn’t wish me to rob Leonora of the first telling of her news,” he objected.
“No,” she admitted slowly; “but I can’t imagine why she’s in such a hurry. I wonder if she is to stay at the hospital longer than she expected – that isn’t it, is it?”
Dr. Dudley shook his head.
“My advice is to make haste with your toilet and run over to the hospital and find out.”
“Yes,” Polly agreed, “I will.” Yet she stood still, her forehead puckered over the possible good things that could have happened to her friend.
Dr. Dudley turned away, and then halted.
“Isn’t your mother waiting for you?” he suggested.
“Oh, I forgot!” she cried, and flew back to where Mrs. Dudley sat, brush and comb in hand.
“How my hair grows!” commented Polly, after discussing the news awaiting her, and silently concluding that whatever her mother knew she did not intend to disclose. “It will be a year next week since it was cut. I shall have mermaid tresses before I know it. Isn’t it nice that I was hurt? Because if I hadn’t been I should never have known you and father. Did you expect to marry him when he took you to ride on Elsie’s birthday?”
“Of course not!” laughed Mrs. Dudley. “You were a roguish little match-maker!”
“I never thought of that,” returned Polly. “I only wanted you to have a good time.”
“I had it,” her mother smiled, tying a ribbon to hold the bright curls. “There!” with a final pluck at the bow; “now run along and hear Leonora’s glad story! I am afraid she will be getting impatient.”
As Polly skipped up to the hospital entrance, the door flew open, and Leonora, smiling rapturously, ran to meet her.
“What is it?” entreated Polly. “I can’t wait another minute!”
“Seem’s if I couldn’t, too! I thought you’d never come! What do you think, Polly May Dudley! I’m goin’ to live with Mrs. Jocelyn! – all the time! – forever! She’s adopted me!”
Polly stared, and then let out her astonishment in a big “O-h!” This was, indeed, something unguessable. “Isn’t that lovely!” she cried in delight. “I’m so glad! – just as glad as I can be!”
“Of course you are! Everybody is,” Leonora responded blissfully. They went in doors arm in arm, stopping in Dr. Dudley’s office, their tongues more than keeping pace with their steps.
“I shouldn’t think your father and mother would want to give you up,” observed practical Polly.
“I guess they’re glad,” Leonora replied. “Prob’ly I wouldn’t go if they were my own; but I don’t belong to them.”
“You don’t?”
“Why, no. My mother died when I was three years old. I can only just remember her. In a little while father married again, and pretty soon he died – he was awful good to me! I cried when they said he wasn’t goin’ to get well. Then my stepmother married Mr. Dinnan. So, you see, I ain’t any relation really, and they’re prob’ly glad not to have me to feed any more. And I guess I’m glad – my! But I can’t b’lieve it yet! Say, I’m goin’ to your school, and Mrs. Jocelyn is comin’ to take me out in her carriage this forenoon to buy me some new clothes!”
Polly’s radiant face was enough to keep Leonora’s tongue lively.
“She’s goin’ to fix me up a room right next to hers, all white and pink! And she’s goin’ to get me a beautiful doll house and some new dolls – she says I can pick ’em out myself! And – what do you think! – she said last night she guessed she’d have to get me a pair of ponies and a little carriage just big enough for you and me, and have me learn to drive ’em!”
“O-h! won’t you be grand!” beamed Polly.
And then, while Leonora chattered on, came to her a picture of that afternoon – so far away it seemed! – when she had been folded in Mrs. Jocelyn’s arms, to be offered these same pleasures, and which she had refused for love of Dr. Dudley, although the thought of calling him father had never then come to her. How glad she was that she had not mentioned this! She had always had an intuitive feeling that the concern was Mrs. Jocelyn’s, to be kept as her secret, and she had therefore been silent. Now Leonora need never know that she was “second choice.” Her friend’s happy confidences recalled Polly’s strolling thoughts.
“I don’t b’lieve you have any idea how perfectly splendid it makes me feel to think I’m goin’ to have that sweet, beautiful Mrs. Jocelyn for my own mother.” The last word was little more than a whisper. Leonora’s dark eyes were luminous with joy.
“Why, of course I know!” responded Polly. “You feel just as I did that day father told me he was going to marry Miss Lucy, – I mean mother, – and