Polly of Lady Gay Cottage Part 25

David and Polly chuckled, understanding the Colonel better, and Patricia, seeing his laughing eyes, at once recovered herself.

"Who wants to go to ride with Lone Star and me?" Colonel Gresham asked.

There was a duet of "I's" from the girls. David said nothing.

"Sorry my buggy will permit of only one invitation. We shall have to draw cuts, shan't we?"

Three lengths of straw were made, the Colonel arranging them as if he were used to the business. The children eyed them with lively interest.

"You choose first, Patricia," Polly said, and they watched breathlessly while her fingers wavered in front of the big, steady hand before daring to pull.

Finally she plucked at one. It was the longest of all.

"Oh, dear!" she lamented.

"Now, Polly!" bade David.

"That will leave you Hobson's choice," she laughed; but he motioned her on, and she caught at the nearest one.

It was an inch shorter than the remaining straw, and she smiled up at the Colonel.

"Miss Dudley, may Lone Star and I have the pleasure of your comrades.h.i.+p for the next hour?" he invited, bowing low.

"I shall be very happy to go," she laughed, sweeping him a little curtsy.

Presently the carriage was ready, Polly and the Colonel jumped in, and Patricia and David sent merry good-byes in the wake of Lone Star's flying feet.

"I can't help being glad I won," confessed Polly, drawing a long breath of delight at the drive in store for her.

Colonel Gresham smiled responsively, tucked the linen duster a little closer, asked her if she were quite comfortable, and then began a little story in the life of his favorite horse.

As they pa.s.sed through the pleasant streets, between front dooryards banked with flowers, the talk after a while led quite naturally to climbing roses for the Colonel's own house.

"If only you could see Mrs. Jocelyn's roses!" Polly wished. "There couldn't be any lovelier ones."

She told him of the great single Silver Moons, and pictured them on his own piazza, until he said he must surely have some.

"Oh!" cried Polly, the thought suddenly popping into her head, "why can't we go round to Mrs. Jocelyn's and see hers? It won't be very much out of our way, and then you can tell just how they'll look. You know Mrs. Jocelyn, don't you?"

Colonel Gresham nodded gravely.

"Then you won't mind going to see her roses, shall you?" Polly chattered on. "She has a big rose garden at the side of the house, lots of beautiful ones; but I 'most know you'll like the Silver Moon kind best."

"I don't believe I like any kind of roses," the Colonel broke out abruptly. "They have too many thorns. Somebody would always be getting scratched if they were on my piazza. I reckon I won't have them, after all."

Polly started to speak, looked up, and then shut her lips on the words. The stern set of her companion's face forbade talk. Yet in a moment it softened, the words came again, and this time they were not forced back.

"Roses are so beautiful, and the thorns are so little I forget about them." She halted, but the Colonel did not respond.

"Once when I was a very small girl," she went on, "I picked a rose in our yard, and scratched my hand so it bled. I ran, crying, to mamma; but she didn't pay any attention to that, only told me to look at the rose. It was a lovely tea rose, the color of sunset when the sky is all yellow with just a bit of a pink flush. She talked about it, till I forgot my finger. When I happened to recollect, the hurt seemed so little compared with that beautiful rose. I guess that's why I don't mind thorns any more. I've always remembered it."

"A good thing to remember," spoke out Colonel Gresham fervently, "and a blessed thing to live up to--if only we could! But some thorns pierce deep!"

He did not look at Polly. One might have thought him talking to Lone Star, for his eyes were on the horse's head.

"Yes, some are bigger than others," Polly replied innocently. "They hurt more. But Silver Moon doesn't have very many. Oh," she cried earnestly, thinking of the rose, "I do wish you could see those of Mrs. Jocelyn's! Isn't it funny," she went on musingly, "how she always calls you David, just as if you were one of her very best friends!

Only very best friends call each other by their first names, do they?

I mean grown-up people. I guess she thinks a lot of you. Sometimes her eyes--you know what dark, s.h.i.+ny eyes she has--well, sometimes when she's talking about you they get so bright and soft, they're just beautiful! I think she is a lovely lady, don't you?"

"I presume she is, from what I hear," replied the Colonel. "I haven't seen her in a long time. But how comes it that she speaks of me? I can't see any occasion for it."

"Oh, I don't know! She talks of you very often. She thinks a lot of David. You know he goes up there with me a good deal."

"David Collins!--goes up to see Mrs. Jocelyn?" Colonel Gresham was plainly surprised.

"Why, not Mrs. Jocelyn exactly, but Leonora. Didn't he ever say anything about it? We go up 'most every week."

"Ah, yes, Leonora! I had forgotten. She is the adopted child?"

Polly recounted the story of Leonora's adoption, to which the Colonel listened attentively; but he made few comments, and when it ended he was silent.

Polly did not know what to think of Colonel Gresham to-day; in fact she began to feel as if she were not quite acquainted with him. She was strangely reminded of that other day, not a year ago, when she chose her happy reward, "to the half of his kingdom." If he were like this at home, she wondered no more that David sometimes refrained from asking him questions. She was still thinking about it, when, suddenly, his customary genial manner returned, and they reached home in such high spirits that David would have been surprised to have learned that any part of the drive had been pa.s.sed in silence.

CHAPTER XVII

A SUMMER NIGHT MYSTERY

David Collins was on the piazza with a book when he heard the call. He sprang up and ran to the end towards Lady Gay Cottage.

"Hullo, Pollee! What is it?"

"Can you come over? I'm all alone. Mother's gone to ride with the Scribners, and father's up in Forestford at a consultation."

"I'll come right now. Say, this is a dandy book! Shall I bring it along?"

By the time the story was finished, David reading it aloud, it was too dusky for another, and the children sat and talked, one in the hammock, the other in the lounging-chair.

Presently Colonel Gresham drove out. David watched him, while Polly indulged in her usual admiration of Lone Star. The carriage was out of sight before the boy turned his eyes from the road where it had vanished.

"I do wonder where he is going," he sighed.

"Probably to give the poor horse some fresh air and exercise,"

responded Polly. "I see him go out nearly every night about this time."