“There’s Reva and Ottoine and Mary up in the children’s ward, and old Mrs. Zieminski, and that funny little Magdalene, and Gustav and Miss Butler—that makes seven,” counting them slowly on her fingers. “I don’t know who I will give the eighth to—there are plenty of folks, only I’m not acquainted with them. Never mind, anybody’ll be glad of one of these lovelicious roses, and I’ll see when I get there.”
“How does it feel to be eleven?” broke in the Doctor’s happy voice.
“Why, I was eleven day before yesterday,” laughed Polly. “I’ve had time to get used to it.”
“But that was a birthday, and yesterday was a party day; it is when you get back to the everydayness that you begin to feel things.”
“It isn’t a bit different from ten,” she declared. “Yes, a little, because I have all these roses to give away. Aren’t they sweet?” She held them up for her father to sniff.
“Come to breakfast!” was the gentle command from the dining-room, and Polly skipped on ahead, cautioning the Doctor to be sure not to spill the water from the vase with which she had entrusted him.
The hour before school found Polly and the pink roses on their way to the big white house. Having the freedom of the hospital almost as much as Dr. Dudley himself, she flitted in and out whenever she chose, never in anybody’s way, and greeted with smiles from nurses and patients.
Her errand this morning carried her first to the children’s convalescent ward, where she was so eagerly seized upon that she escaped only by pleading her additional flowers to distribute, and school time not far away.
With the eighth rose still in her hand, and debating whether to carry it up to the children, or to give it to a boy in the surgical ward with whom she had once spoken, she passed a half-open door on one of the private-room corridors.
Glancing inside, she saw a young man, with bandaged eyes, lying on a couch. He was quite alone, and his mouth looked sad.