Polly of Lady Gay Cottage Part 33

DEAR UNCLE MAURICE,--

I thought when you were here and when I was in New York that I could never accept your invitation to come and live with you. But I have changed my mind--no, I have not exactly changed my mind, because I don't want to go as bad as ever--

"I'm afraid that isn't very polite," Polly thought ruefully, drew a deep sigh, and took a fresh sheet.

DEAR UNCLE MAURICE,--

When you were here, last spring, I thought I could not ever come to live with you, but now it seems best for me to accept your invitation. Perhaps you don't want me by this time, and if you don't, please say so, because it won't make any difference to me--I mean I shall be glad not--

Polly stopped suddenly. That would never do. She put the sheet aside, and began anew.

DEAR UNCLE MAURICE,--

I wonder if you still want me to come and live with you.

Because if you do, I will--

At the fatal word, Polly's lip quivered, her pen turned, and a big splash of ink fell right in the middle of the fair page. She didn't care. There were other splashes, too. Tears were sprinkling the paper and blotting her lines.

"Oh, I--can't go!--I can't!--I can't!" she sobbed softly.

Presently she grew quiet, courage came back, determination strengthened. She began again to write. But tears brimmed her eyes and spoilt the letter once more. It was disheartening work.

At last the sorry words were down, and Polly felt that all happiness for this world was over.

"I hope I shall die quick," she said to herself. "Then I can go and live with mamma."

She swallowed hard. Even the prospect of Heaven was poor consolation just now.

With great painstaking she directed the envelope and placed the stamp.

She could not bring herself to seal it; that could wait until the last moment. It seemed to her she should then be irrevocably bound to do the thing she had promised. It would be the final link in this dreadful chain.

A pa.s.sing glance in the small mirror sent her to bathe her hot, tear-stained face before venturing down to the letter-box on the corner. She dallied with the towel until there was no further excuse, she brushed her hair into unaccustomed smoothness; finally she went slowly over to her little desk, and took up the envelope, at last sealing it hurriedly, lest her courage should utterly fail. She would slip out to the letter-box, and have the miserable business done with as soon as possible.

She had reached the door, her hand on the k.n.o.b, when she heard a step in the corridor--her mother's step. She halted guiltily, with quick intuition thrusting the letter behind her.

"Polly! are you here? May I come in?"

Hesitantly Polly opened the door.

"Hurry off your dress, dear! Mrs. Jocelyn has sent for us to come up to dinner. She says she has been trying to get us by telephone for the last hour."

"Chris is over at the hospital," volunteered Polly, slyly slipping her letter, face down, under her glove-box before running to fetch a fresh white frock.

"No, he has just come home with me," Mrs. Dudley replied. "He said he couldn't persuade you to go out this afternoon. Don't you feel well?

Your cheeks are flushed,--and your pulse is a little quick," her fingers on the small wrist.

"Oh, I'm all right!" insisted Polly, forcing a smile, and pulling away, to guard against further questioning.

Why should this invitation have come just now--to make it harder, oh, so much harder, for her to leave them all!

CHAPTER XX

MRS. JOCELYN'S DINNER-PARTY

Leonora met Polly at the door, slipping ahead of the maid to catch her in an ecstatic embrace, and to let go a joyful whisper in her ear.

"Come right up to my room! I've got something lovely to tell you!"

Leonora's face was so radiant that Polly was all at once reminded of that morning at the hospital when she had first heard of her friend's adoption. What could have happened now to make her look like that?

"Say," began Leonora, bubbling with news, "Colonel Gresham and David and his mother are here!"

Polly's eyes grew big, and her lips puckered into a "Why!" of astonishment.

"And, oh, there's lots more!" went on Leonora mysteriously. "But I'm not to tell! I promised mother I wouldn't--only just that. You'd know it anyway when you go down. Oh, Polly Dudley, I'm so tickled--there!

mother told me not to say that word again!--well, happy, I mean, only it doesn't sound so perfectly splendid as I feel. It seems as if I couldn't stand it!"

"I can't imagine what it is," mused Polly wonderingly.

At which Leonora whirled her round and round in a rapturous hug, stopping suddenly to say they must go downstairs.

After Polly had greeted her hostess and the other guests, she found that a conversation was going on about the hospital.

"Yes," the Doctor was saying, "we need more room, especially for children. We had to refuse two little girls yesterday and a boy the day before; there was absolutely no place where we could put them."

"Then you think there is demand for a children's hospital in the city?" asked Mrs. Jocelyn tentatively.

"A big demand," the Doctor smiled.

"I'm glad to hear that," was the quiet reply, "for I wish to build one."

Polly sat up straight and still, her astonished eyes fixed on Mrs.

Jocelyn.

"You could hardly put your money to better use," responded Dr. Dudley.

"So I think; but I wanted your opinion before going further. I have the refusal of the Beecher property west of me; that will give me the whole block. My plan is to put up two buildings, one on each side of my house,--a little to the rear, so as not to cut off the sunlight,--and let this be the connecting link. The head physician can live here, and both parts will be easy of access--what do you say?"

"Admirable plan," agreed the Doctor. "But, Mrs. Jocelyn, have you estimated the cost? There'll be practically no end to the expense of keeping up such an establishment."

"I don't care anything about that," was the indifferent reply.

"There's plenty to draw from." Her face was suddenly swept by a shadow of sadness. "For a long time I have wanted to do something in memory of Lloyd,--something for children,--and this seems to be the most feasible of any plan I've thought of. I don't want it called a hospital either. There is a prejudice among a certain cla.s.s against the very name. Some people will let their children die, rather than send them to a hospital. So Leonora and I have been choosing--what do you think of this, 'The Children's House of Joy'?"

"Isn't that perfectly beautiful?" whispered Leonora to Polly, catching her hand with a little squeeze.