“Because we ought to love everybody, I s’pose,” Polly answered slowly.
“Do you love her?” demanded Patricia. “Do you, honest?”
Polly shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t now,” she admitted; “but maybe I can some time.”
Patricia laughed. “I don’t b’lieve I shall—ever,” she declared; “you can love her enough for us both.”
A flock of girls came in from outside, and confidences were hushed, the two presently going upstairs arm in arm.
“Don’t forget that you are to go home with me right after school to-night!” whispered Patricia, just before they reached the upper door.
“I couldn’t,” was the smiling answer. And Polly went to her seat, still thinking of the pleasure ahead.
At noon David lingered behind until the girls were gone, and hurried off in advance of them on the way back, trying to satisfy his conscience with the argument that they wouldn’t want him “tagging on anyway.” So the new friends were left for the greater share of the walk quite to themselves, Polly, when not too much interested in tales of the pet broncho back in Silverton, keeping a lookout for David, and wondering where he could possibly be. She even went so far as to wish, away down in her secret heart, that David were going with her on the first visit to her new cousin.
Opening from the principal schoolroom was a deep, narrow closet where the working supplies were kept. To reach the shelves at the back one must pass through the pinched little door, an easy matter for a sprite like Polly, who flitted in and out at any angle; but an occasional plump pupil was obliged to slip in sideways or be unpleasantly squeezed.
The afternoon was half through when extra paper was needed, and Miss Carpenter, an assistant teacher, asked Ilga Barron to fetch some.