"Are her rules so awful?" inquired Miss Mullaly anxiously.

"I don't like them very," answered the little Swedish widow.

"Mis' Adlerfeld puts it politely." laughed Miss Crilly. "I'll tell you what they are, they are like the little girl in the rhyme--with a difference,--

'When they're bad, they're very, very bad, And when they're good, they're horrid!'"

"I heard you couldn't have any company except one afternoon a week," resumed Miss Mullaly, after the laughing had ceased,--"not anybody at all."

"Sure!" returned Miss Crilly. "Wednesday afternoon, from three to five, is the only time you can entertain your best feller."

"Why, Polly Dudley was here Thursday morning!"

"Now you've got me!" admitted Miss Crilly. "She's a privileged character. She runs over any blessed minute she wants to."

"And she brings her friends with her," added Miss Castlevaine,--"David Collins and his greataunt's daughter,--Leonora Jocelyn,--Patricia Illingworth, and Chris Morrow, and that girl they call Lilith, besides the Stickney boys up in Foxford--huh!"

"She must be pretty bold, when it's against the rule," observed Miss Mullaly.

"No," dissented Mrs. Albright, "it isn't boldness. Polly runs in as naturally as a kitten. The rest don't come so very often. I shouldn't say they'd let 'em; but they do."

"There's never any favoritism in the June Holiday Home--never!"

Mrs. Crump's brown poplin bristled with sarcasm.

"Maybe it's on Miss Sterling's account," interposed Mrs. Albright.

"She thinks so much of Polly, perhaps they hope it'll help to bring her out of this sooner."

"Don't you believe it!" Miss Castlevaine's head nodded out the words with emphasis. "Dr. Dudley's a good one to curry favor with."

"Is Miss Sterling a relative of his?" asked Miss Mullaly.

"No. Haven't you heard how they got acquainted? Quite a pretty little story." Mrs. Albright settled herself comfortably in the rocker and adjusted the cushion at her back.

The others, who were familiar with the facts, moved closer together and nearer the window, both to facilitate their needles and their tongues.

"It was the day after Miss Sterling came, along in September," the story-teller began, "and she was up in her room feeling pretty lonesome--you know how it is."

Miss Mullaly nodded--with a sudden droop of her lips.

"She stood there looking out of the window toward the back of the new hospital,--it was building then,--and she saw a little girl climbing an apple tree. She watched her go higher and higher, after a big, bright red apple that was away up on a top branch.

Miss Sterling says she went so fast that she fairly held her breath, expecting to see her slip; but she didn't, she's so sure-footed, and it would have been all right if she hadn't ventured on a rotten branch. When she stepped out on that and reached up one hand to pick the apple, the branch broke, and down she went and lay in a little heap under the tree.

"Well, Miss Sterling said she felt as if she must fly right out of that window and go pick her up. But it didn't take her many minutes to run down the stairs and out the front door--she didn't stop to ask permission--and over across lots to Polly. She was in a dead faint, but in a minute she came to, and Miss Sterling ran up to the house and got Dr. Dudley and his wife, and they carried her in, and Miss Sterling went too. The Doctor couldn't find that Polly was hurt at all, only bruised a little--you see, the branches had broken her fall, and she was all around again in a few days.

Miss Sterling was pretty well upset by it, so that the Doctor came home with her, and she had to go to bed, same as Polly did! It made quite a stir here.

"Ever since then Polly has run in and out, any time of day, just as I hear she does at the hospital. She's that kind of a girl, never makes any trouble, and so nothing is said."

"I guess I shall break lots of the rules before I know what they are."

"You'll learn 'em soon enough, don't you worry! There's a long list; but you'll get used to 'em after a while--we have to.

There's nothing like getting used to things. It's a great help."

CHAPTER III

POLLY ADDRESSES THE BOARD

"It is a shame, Miss Nita!" Polly was saying. "To think of it--that you can't curl your hair even to go to a wedding! I wonder if father or mother could do anything."

"Oh, no!" cried Miss Sterling, in sudden terror. "Don't, I beg of you, let them say a word to Miss Sniffen! She'd turn me right out!"

"I should wish she would, if I were you."

"Where could I go? I'd have to sit on the sidewalk!"

Polly laughed.

"No, Miss Nita," catching one of the slim white hands and pressing it against her cheek, "you come right over to our house when Miss Sniffen turns you outdoors, and we'll take care of you!"

"It isn't anything to laugh at," sobbed the little woman.

"I know, I'm wicked to laugh; but I had a picture of you sitting on the curb in your nightgown, and I couldn't help it!"

Then Miss Sterling laughed too.

Shortly she fell to crying again. "I did want to look nice at Cousin Jennie's wedding, as nice as I could, and I do think it is downright mean!" She hammered out the last words with desperate force.

Polly stood by her side, distressed into silence.

"You don't know that she'll let you go anyway, do you?" she asked presently.

"Yes, she said I could, and then I asked her if I might curl my hair. She snapped out a disagreeable 'no,' and I turned and came upstairs."

Polly was doing some hard thinking.

"Queer, Jennie should marry at her age," Miss Sterling resumed after a brief pause, wiping her eyes dry. "She is forty-one, only two years younger than I."

"Are you forty-three? n.o.body'd ever guess it." Polly gazed at her critically. "I wonder if I couldn't curl your hair at the last minute, and smuggle you downstairs, all wrapped up, so Miss Sniffen wouldn't know. You could wet it out the next morning."

Miss Sterling shook her head with a wee smile. "I would if I dared, but I don't. If Miss Sniffen weren't there to see, Mrs.

n.o.bbs would be, and nothing escapes her eyes. No, 't would be too much risk."

"Maybe it would," Polly admitted, and then paused to listen. "It's three o'clock and I must go. I halfway promised David and Leonora I'd come down there this afternoon. I guess they're a little bit jealous of you. It's handy to run over here, and they're so far away. I should think you'd get tired of me, I come so much."

"Tired of you!" echoed Miss Sterling. "You are the only bit of cheerfulness I have to look forward to. Last night I couldn't sleep; I was just upset after seeing Miss Sniffen, and my head felt wretched. But I kept saying to myself, 'Polly will be here in the morning!' and that helped me through the night. You don't know--you never will know!--what a comfort you are!" She pulled Polly down and gave her a little squeeze.

"And then I didn't come this morning after all!" cried Polly in sudden contrition. "That was mean! But I had some things to do for mother, and Chris wanted me to help him with his stamps, and so I didn't get to it. I'm sorry."