There never came an answer to that little penciled note, and Polly’s loving heart sank very low in the days that followed.
There was much to depress her and to make her sad.
Her mother was ill to begin with, not very ill, only tired, and very weak.
Her father had gone north on most important business. Whether he had been to see Christina or not Polly never knew, and she asked no questions. The story of coming trouble that Winifred had given her that Monday morning was confirmed.
“Father has had some heavy losses,” her mother told her, in a quiet, dull way. “We must reduce expenses everywhere. I have given most of the servants notice to go.”
“I am very glad,” was Polly’s remark. “I will be cook, and I will be so economical, mumsy, and Winifred shall be parlormaid and butler.”
Mrs. Pennington smiled that wan smile of hers at the girl’s enthusiasm, but words seemed to have gone from her for a time. She who had been so brave, who had fought so long against that most hideous of miseries, a false position, seemed to have no more strength left to fight now.
Polly constituted herself nurse in her mother’s room, and concocted mysterious dishes.
“You must eat this, my love!” she would cry. “Look, a ragout a la Marguerite, my own invention. You simply cannot refuse it, mother dearest!”
When the news came, conveyed in the form of an announcement in the paper, that Christina was married, the mother seemed to wake from her apathy. She broke into passionate tears; they were such tears as Polly had never seen her mother shed before.