"Polly cannot tell right off just what she will be able to do," interposed Miss Lucy. "Dr. Dudley has n't seen them yet. Suppose you run down and show them to him, Polly."
Down the stairs skipped Polly, glad to get away from the too eager children.
The Doctor received them delightedly. Polly watched him with thoughtful eyes.
"Do you think they look like me?" she ventured at last.
"Very much," he answered, smiling at the anxious pucker between Polly's eyebrows. "What is the trouble?"
The pink in her cheeks deepened to crimson. "I am not—so pretty as that," she faltered. "You know I'm not. And I hate to give away such pictures. It seems as if folks would think I wanted to make out I looked better than I really do."
Dr. Dudley's eyes were bent to the photograph in hand. He thought hard and fast. Should he tell her the truth,—that the beautiful black-and-white print, with all its exquisite softness, scarcely did justice to the delicate mobile face?
"I wanted you and Miss Lucy to have one," she went on, "and Colonel Gresham, and David, and High Price, and Leonora, and Cornelius—for he was so good to get my locket back. Then the rest of them—there are a dozen—I thought I'd give to anybody that wanted one; but now—" she halted appealingly.
"Well, if I were you, Thistledown," and the Doctor threw his arm in a comradely way across the slim shoulders, "I should go straight along and give my pictures to those for whom I had intended them, with no thought about any lack of resemblance. You sat for the photographs, and you are not to blame for any possible mistake the camera may have made; so don't let it bother you."
She gave a little gleeful chuckle. "It is the camera's fault, is n't it? I never thought of that. Well, if you think it's all right to give them away, it must be; but it did n't seem quite— hones, you know." She looked up still a bit anxious.