"I'll warrant that sour-looking elephant in the back car wouldn't!"

laughed the Colonel. "She's that kind!"

"Oh! I guess you mean Miss Castlevaine. She's the biggest one there is. But she is very nice--sometimes."

"The times are few and far between, aren't they?" he twinkled.

Polly laughed, but said apologetically, "She's been pleasant to me."

"She ought to be; but over at the Tenneys' she looked as if she'd like to be somewhere else. She seemed to keep on the edge of things."

"She doesn't always come in with the rest--feels a little above some of them. She is very proud of her Russian ancestry. Her mother or grandmother was a d.u.c.h.ess."

"I thought she was proud of something," observed the Colonel, "and it couldn't be her good looks."

"I think you are pretty hard on her," protested Polly.

"Am I?" he smiled. "Is she a particular friend of yours? You'll have to excuse me."

"Oh, she isn't an especial friend, but I feel sorry for her because she has to wear such old clothes--and she loves pretty things."

"Why doesn't she get pretty things, then, while she is about it?"

"She can't!" cried Polly. "She has to take what Miss Sniffen gives her."

"Oh, I see! Well, I reckon I'd look sour if I were dependent on that Miss Sniffen for clothes."

Polly chuckled. "I can't imagine it!"

"It would come pretty hard!" Colonel Gresham shook his head musingly. "It is a shame that those women are not better treated!

I'll take them to ride as often as I can--you tell them so, Polly!"

"I will!" Polly beamed her delight. "It's lovely of you! It will do them no end of good. They stay cooped up in the house too much.

You see, there's so much red tape about going out even for a little walk, that sometimes they'd rather stay at home."

"I'm going to talk to Randolph about it when I get a chance. He is too sensible a man to let this sort of thing go on."

"Oh, but you mustn't make him think there has been the leastest mite of complaint! If anybody finds a word of fault, she'll get turned out! They're afraid of their lives!"

"This little woman back here doesn't look afraid."

"No, she's different." Polly cast a look at her.

Mrs. Adlerfeld caught it and smiled back, a bright, happy smile, as if, indeed, she had "lots o' joy."

CHAPTER XVI

THE HIKING CLUB

"OH, Miss Nita! What do you think?" Polly burst into the room full of excitement. "Chris has gone!"

"Gone? Where?"

"To Australia!"

"Not alone?"

"Oh, no! His father is with him. We never knew he was coming--till there he was! For a minute Chris hardly knew him! Isn't that queer? But he didn't look like himself. His hair is cut close to his head! What do you suppose he did it for? It isn't becoming!

But, oh, you ought to have seen Chris! He jumped right into his father's arms and cried and cried and cried! Mr. Morrow cried, too, almost as hard as Chris! We had a pretty exciting time!"

"When was it?" put in Miss Sterling.

"This noon. Mother did finally persuade him to stay to dinner--he wasn't going to! I don't see why he was in such a hurry to get away! Oh, I shall miss that boy awfully! He is always just so--never cross or pouty, or anything. Sometimes he has been pretty blue--I suppose thinking of his father and wondering why he didn't come. It has been almost two years! It won't seem a bit natural without Chris. I shall have to come over here and bother you more than ever." Polly sighed a bit sorrowfully and dropped on a ha.s.sock at Miss Sterling's feet.

"You know you couldn't come too often, my dear."

"I feel sometimes as if I were a nuisance," laughed Polly. "I guess Miss Sniffen thinks so. She looks at me so queer when she meets me in the hall."

"It is only her way. She can't have anything against you."

Polly shook her head doubtfully; then she smiled. "I did kind of pacify her the other night when we were late from our walk, didn't I? I was afraid I couldn't, but I wasn't going to let her know it!"

"It was funny the way she came round," Miss Sterling agreed.

"That makes me think," Polly broke out, "when are we going to have another walk?"

"I--don't--know," sighed the other. "Walking is such an effort! I get so tired I can't sleep."

"That's too bad!" mourned Polly. "But don't you think it's because you stay in the house so much? If you went oftener maybe you'd get used to it and it wouldn't tire you."

"Perhaps. I don't know."

"We were planning, only yesterday, Chris and I, to start a walking club--and now he's gone! But I suppose the rest of us can have it," Polly went on. "We thought we'd ask David and Leonora and Patricia,--she and her mother are just home from the sh.o.r.e,--and Doodles and Blue and all of you folks here."

"All the ladies?"

Polly nodded.

"They're not all equal to it. You forget how old some of them are."

"Anyway, they aren't too old to be asked!" laughed Polly.

"No, and it is a good idea. Sometimes a club will have a stronger pull on anybody than just an incidental invitation."

"That's what we thought--dear, dear, it's too bad Chris had to go!"