"No, Miss Nita," catching one of the slim white hands and pressing it against her cheek, "you come right over to our house when Miss Sniffen turns you outdoors, and we'll take care of you!"
"It isn't anything to laugh at," sobbed the little woman.
"I know, I'm wicked to laugh; but I had a picture of you sitting on the curb in your nightgown, and I couldn't help it!"
Then Miss Sterling laughed too.
Shortly she fell to crying again. "I did want to look nice at Cousin Jennie's wedding, as nice as I could, and I do think it is downright mean!" She hammered out the last words with desperate force.
Polly stood by her side, distressed into silence.
"You don't know that she'll let you go anyway, do you?" she asked presently.
"Yes, she said I could, and then I asked her if I might curl my hair. She snapped out a disagreeable 'no,' and I turned and came upstairs."
Polly was doing some hard thinking.
"Queer, Jennie should marry at her age," Miss Sterling resumed after a brief pause, wiping her eyes dry. "She is forty-one, only two years younger than I."