[CHAPTER XVII—POLLY INTERVENES]
Polly had just washed her hair, and she was sitting on her shirt waist box before the open window drying it. It was a gloriously warm, sunshiny day and the twitter of birds, the spring smell of the earth and the lazy hellos of the girls as they greeted one another on the campus below, gave her a drowsy feeling of contentment. Exams were nearly all over, and every one seemed to be just waiting in happy anticipation of Commencement.
Except for a short talk by Mrs. Baird after dinner it was to be a free evening and the girls had been granted permission to stay out of doors until it was really dark. Mrs. Baird had said that now was the time to take a big deep breath before rushing into the coming week of excitement.
Polly, half asleep, felt the top of her head and found it nearly dry—she shifted her position to a half kneeling one, shook her hair over her face so that the sun might shine on the back of it, and cradling her head on her arm resumed her dreaming.
“I wonder where Lo is,” she mused—“probably
practicing in the gym with Bet. I wish I hadn’t washed my hair. It seems awfully silly to waste this beautiful day just breathing. I wonder what we could do. Why doesn’t Lo come up; she knows I can’t go out. I believe I’m lonesome.” Polly sat up as this thought took shape in her mind. “How absurd,” she said aloud. And then she laughed. It was funny to think that after all the years she had spent alone that she could so soon forget how to amuse herself. It was the first time she had realized what a difference Seddon Hall had made to her.
“I’d better get used to it,” she said again, but she looked very doleful at the prospect.
A few minutes later, as she was feeling sorry for herself, a rap sounded at the door and Lois’ voice called:
“Oh, Poll, are you there?”
“Yes, come in.”