“Where are you going?” questioned the latter. “Anything I can do for you?”
Polly tried hard to keep back the lump in her throat as she answered:
“I am going to the reception-room; my uncle is leaving.”
“Better take me with you,” Lois advised. “You’d never find your way alone.”
When Polly reached the reception-room she found Uncle Roddy decidedly unhappy. He was feeling a responsibility for, perhaps, the first time in his bachelor life, and he didn’t like it.
She said good-by to him, promised to write, and received his hug and kiss with a choked sensation. Something snapped as the carriage disappeared down the hill. She realized she was all alone. She would have given anything to have been able to run after the carriage and beg him to take her home with him.
The lump in her throat was asserting itself in tears as Lois came back to find her.
“Come on up to Assembly Hall and meet some of the girls,” she suggested, putting her arm around her shoulder and pretending not to notice the tears. At this touch of comradeship the lump in Polly’s throat, as if by magic, disappeared.
The rest of the day was a blur to Polly, as it was to all the new girls. As she lay wide awake in bed until late that night, she tried to form a clear idea of what had happened.
“I’m quite sure I’m going to like Angela and Connie,” she said to herself. “And I adore Betty; she’s such fun. But Lois is the nicest of all. It was awfully sweet of her to ask me to sit beside her for Mrs. Baird’s welcome talk, and she’s promised to take me over the grounds tomorrow.