Mrs. Jocelyn returned from the kitchen, and, unnoticed, slipped into a seat back of the player.
Finally Polly turned around.
"I felt you there!" she laughed. "Have I hindered you?"
"You have been charming me. Why, child, I did n't know you could play so well! And all out of practice, too! I should n't think you could recollect a note."
"My fingers seem to," Polly smiled. "I'll think I don't know a piece, and then my hands go right along and play it."
"I wish mine would," laughed Mrs. Jocelyn. "But I've let my music go too long; it will never come back." Her last tones were a little sad, but she quickly recovered her gayety. "Suppose we think over now," she proposed, "what you would like to purchase at the stores, and where we shall need to go. Then we can the better map out our afternoon."
Polly was all eagerness at once, and her hostess was no less interested.
"Are n't there some new girls in the ward who have n't any dolls?"
"Yes," Polly answered, "there are five or six. Let me see," tapping off the names on her fingers, "there's Mabel, and Stella, and Frederica, and Angiola, and Trotty,—she's only four,— and Mary Pender, and Ida Regan,—she's real pretty; that makes seven: I think that's all."
"You shall choose a doll for each one of them. You will know better than I just what will suit."