But Chrissie had not come back, and her note brought in at that moment struck the final touch of loving, confident hope from the mother’s heart.
She gave the note to Polly.
Somehow, though Polly was younger than Winifred, her mother turned to her more easily.
“Will you put Chrissie’s things together, love?” the quiet voice asked, simply. “You see she is very angry with me, and she will stay with your grandmother for a little while.”
Polly’s eloquent face took an expression of pain and tears.
“Chris does not mean to vex you, mother darling; I am sure of it,” she said, eagerly; but her eagerness was not to defend Chrissie as in former times, but to give pleasure and solace to her mother’s heart.
Mrs. Pennington smiled faintly.
“Ah! Polly, dear,” she said, with a little break in her voice, “we all make big, sad mistakes sometimes. Pray God my Chris may never live to regret the mistake she is making.”
Polly went upstairs and into Christina’s room with a heart that ached, as she said to herself, “like toothache,” and a blinding mist before her.
It seemed to her almost as though she were committing a fault to find herself in Chrissie’s room at all.