It needed no very great skill to read that Polly’s anxiety about her brother was well founded. The boy had a very weak, wan look, and Valentine felt a little pang in his big, strong heart as he looked at him. He was an interesting lad, and above the average in intelligence.
Polly poured out tea, and fussed about her mother, and the while she did this she was listening to the conversation carried on between Harold and Mr. Ambleton.
Valentine discovered to his pleasure that he could be of definite use to the boy. From the sketches produced he discovered that Harold had more than a fair talent for designing, and with cultivation might turn his talent in an architectural direction.
“You must come and stay with me a while,” Val said. “Will you spare him, Mrs. Pennington?” he queried. “My sister will take great care of him, and, I believe, I can find him some work.”
“Oh, mother!” Harold exclaimed in boyish delight, and Mrs. Pennington murmured her pleasure in this arrangement.
As for Polly, she thanked Mr. Ambleton with her eyes, a matter that afforded him considerable satisfaction, and in a little while Valentine brought this visit to a close, and drove away, feeling that he had left something very dear behind him.
Harold talked enthusiastically about his new friend all that evening, and the thought of a visit to Dynechester, and the prospect of turning himself from a schoolboy into the dignity of one who might soon be a wage-earner, brought a glow of color to his pale face.
“I call him a brick!” he cried, as Valentine was discussed.
“He is much too big to be one brick,” said Polly, meditatively.
She was wondering if she could let Harold go on a visit without supplementing his rather shabby wardrobe. Finally she determined that they could not afford to indulge in any extravagance, and so on the morrow she packed the boy’s school box, and wrapped him in sundry flannels, and confided him to Valentine’s care.