The most of the Doctor’s little speech was quite lost to Polly, for when Leonora stopped, everybody seemed to be talking at once. Then, in a flash, Polly connected two things,—the position her father was to have and the “salary” of which Mrs. Jocelyn had talked with the great surgeon. There would be no more “pinch,”—what need would there be of her going to Uncle Maurice? And the letter wasn’t mailed! She wanted to jump up and shout it at the top of her voice. But instead she stole across to her father, and slipped her hand in his. Then, suddenly, her throat ached with the joy of it all, and she was close to tears, keeping them back only by a mighty effort.
“Polly! Polly! come here quick!” called Leonora.
And Polly went, just as Mrs. Jocelyn was saying:—
“No, I shall not need my house any longer. Thirty years ago David Gresham and I had a quarrel, and we think thirty years is quite long enough for a quarrel to last,—too long, in fact!—so we have made up, as the children say. I shall be very glad to leave all the worry of housekeeping to Mrs. Collins, for I am tired of it.”
At this moment she arose to greet a gentleman who was entering the room. Polly recognized him as the Rector of St. Paul’s, and before she realized what was going on, Mrs. Jocelyn and Colonel Gresham were standing together, and the marriage ceremony was in progress.
“What do you think now? Aren’t you awfully surprised?” bubbled the irrepressible Leonora, as the first congratulations were spoken. “We’re coming to live next to you, right in the house with David, and Colonel Gresham will be my father!”
It was after the informal dinner, when the Colonel had the four around him,—Polly and Leonora on either knee, and David and Chris each on an arm of his chair,—that the “lovely thing,” as Leonora called it, happened.
“Polly, I’m going to have some roses on my piazza next summer,” declared the Colonel, “and I reckon I’ll let my quartette pick them out for me.”
“I shall choose Silver Moons,” decided Polly at once.