So there was nothing to protect her slender figure in its rough black serge, and the wind played fine havoc with her pretty brown curls; but Polly cared not. A little rain would not hurt her, and as for the wind, she welcomed it as a friend.
Poising lightly and easily on the wet surface of the rocks, she sprang from one to another with all the assurance of a bird; and when she reached the end of the journey, she stood for one instant with outstretched hands, as though her spirit, indeed, would wing her across the ocean just as the seabirds took their flight.
Had there been anyone to admire the girl in this hour, there could have been found no one surely to deny her beauty. The eyes alone were a wealth of loveliness in themselves; the old fire, the old curious opalesque shades of color had come back to their depths, marking them as jewels of some priceless order in the quaint little brown face.
Unfortunately there was no other human being to gaze upon this pretty creature.
Beachcroft had a deserted, and doubtless to most eyes, a desolate look on this stormy August afternoon.
Mrs. Blaine was the first person to coincide with this idea.
She went to the door many times to look for Polly, and each time the wind and the rain drove her indoors again.
“If this had come in June and July I’d like to know where we’d have been!” she said to herself.
She could not help being a little anxious as the hours slipped on and on, and Polly never came, but already she had caught enough knowledge of the girl’s nature to feel convinced she would not be harmed by such infelicitous weather as most people would be.
She set about preparing a dainty little dinner, and she took far more care for Polly’s repast than she did for that which was going up to her drawing-room lodgers, two old ladies, who, needless to say, had not dared to put their noses outside the door this day, and had watched Polly’s peregrinations amid the wet rocks with a scandalized air.