Polly and the Princess.

by Emma C. Dowd.

CHAPTER I

WAFFLES AND DEWLAPS

The June Holiday Home was one of those sumptuous stations where indigent gentlewomen a.s.semble to await the coming of the last train.

Breakfast was always served precisely at seven o'clock, and certain dishes appeared as regularly as the days. This was waffle morning on the Home calendar; outside it was known as Thursday.

The eyes of the "new lady" wandered beyond the dining-room and followed a young girl, all in pink.

"Who is that coming up the walk?"

Fourteen faces turned toward the wide front window.

Miss Castlevaine was quickest. Her answer did not halt the syrup on its way to her plate.

"That's Polly Dudley."

"Oh! Dr. Dudley's daughter?"

"Yes. She's come over to see Miss Sterling. They're very intimate."

"Miss Sterling?" mused Miss Mullaly, with a sweeping glance round the table. "I don't believe I've seen her."

"Yes, you have. She was down to tea last night. She had on a light blue waist, and sat over at the end."

"Oh, I remember now! She's little and sweet-looking. Somebody told me she had nervous prostration. Too bad! She is so young and pretty!"

A tiny sneer fluttered from face to face, skipping one here and there in its course. It ended in Miss Castlevaine's "Huh!"

"I think Miss Sterling is real pretty!" Miss Crilly, from the opposite side, beamed on the "new lady."

"She has faded dreadfully," a.s.serted Mrs. Crump. "They used to call her handsome years ago, though she never was my style o'

beauty. But now--" She shook her head with hard emphasis.

"She has been through a good deal," observed Mrs. Grace mildly.

"No more'n I have!" was the retort. "If she'd stop thinking about herself and eat like other folks, she'd be better."

"Nervous prostration patients have to be careful about their diet, don't they?" ventured Miss Mullaly.

"She hasn't got it!" snapped Mrs. Crump.

"She thinks she has." Miss Castlevaine's thick lips curved in a smile of scorn.

"If she can't digest things, it won't do her much good to eat them," interposed Miss Major positively. "n.o.body could digest these waffles--they're slack this morning."

Miss Castlevaine gave her plate a little push. "I wish I needn't ever see another waffle," she fretted.

"Oh!" exclaimed the "new lady," "I don't understand how anybody can get tired of waffles!"

"Nor I!" laughed Miss Mullaly's right-hand neighbor. "I shall have to tell you about the time I went to Cousin Dorothy's wedding luncheon.

"I never had eaten waffles but once; that was at my aunt's. She had gone to housekeeping directly after the wedding ceremony, and was spoken of in the family as 'the bride.' I had been her first guest, and, as she had treated me to waffles, I thought waffles and brides always went together. So when I was included in the invitation to Dorothy's wedding luncheon, my first thought was of waffles. I said something about it to my brother, and Ralph was just tease enough to lead me on. He told me that the table would be piled with waffles, great stacks of them at every plate! Like a little dunce I believed it all and went to that party antic.i.p.ating a blissful supply of waffles. In vain I looked up and down the elegant table! I ate and ate, but never a waffle appeared!

Finally, when I could stand it no longer, I piped out, 'Cousin Dorothy, please can I have my waffles now?' Of course, my mother was dreadfully mortified, for some of the guests were strangers, and very great people; but Dorothy took it as a mighty good joke, and even after I was married she used to laugh about my 'w'awful'

disappointment. I've not gotten over my appet.i.te for waffles either! I believe I could eat and relish them three times a day."

"You couldn't! Just wait till you've had 'em fifty-two times a year, five years running--as I have!" Mrs. Crump's lips made a straight line.

"Mrs. Crump has kept tabs on her waffles," giggled Miss Crilly.

"How many does this morning make--five hundred and--?"

"Sh!" nudged Mrs. Bonnyman at Miss Crilly's elbow.

Two youngish women entered the room. They were the superintendent and the matron.

Upstairs, meanwhile, Miss Juanita Sterling; in bed, and Polly Dudley, seated on the outside, were having a familiar talk.

"I shouldn't think you'd want to die till G.o.d gave you something to die of," Polly was saying wistfully. "I think He must want you to live, or He would give you something to die of. Perhaps He has some beautiful work for you to do and is waiting for you to get well and do it."

"Polly, I cannot work! And there is no lack of things for me to die of!" Impatience crept into the sweet voice. "Being in prison is bad enough even with good health; but to be sick, wretched--the worst kind of sickness, because n.o.body understands!--and to grow old, too, grow old fast--oh, I wish G.o.d would let me die!" The little woman gave a sudden whirl and hid her face in the pillow.

"Don't, Miss Nita!" Polly's voice was distressed. She stroked the smooth, soft hair. "Don't cry! You're not old! You're not old a bit! And you're going to be well--father says so!"

"That won't take away the dewlap--oh!" cried Miss Sterling fiercely, "I don't want a dewlap!"

"Dewlap?" scowled Polly. "What's a dewlap?"

"Polly! You know!" came from down among the feathers.

"I don't!" Polly protested. "Is it some kind of--cancer?"

"Cancer! Polly!" Miss Sterling laughed out.

"Well, I don't know what it is." Polly laughed in sympathy.

"Look here!" The little lady raised herself on her elbow and lifted her chin. "See that!"

Polly peered at the fair, pink skin.

"What? I don't see anything."

"Why, that! It's getting wabbly." Her slim forefinger pushed the flesh back and forth.

"Oh!" Polly's face brightened. "I remember! That's what Grandaunt Susie called it! She said she used to have an awful one--it hung 'way down. And she cured it! You'd never dream she had one ever!"