“‘Isn’t he!’ echoed the nine.
“‘I think Jim Tucker was the cross one,’ said Mary Fox.
“‘Anyway, Mr. Cross isn’t cross!’ declared Mary Lyon.
“And that made the ten little girls laugh all the way home.”
Benedicta started it. She dropped her crocheting in her lap and clapped her hands with a will.
At that, everybody else clapped—everybody but Polly, and the most venturesome little patient cried out, “Hurrah! hurrah!”
Of course, the rest followed, and among the cheers was plainly distinguishable a deeper voice than Dr. Abbe’s, a voice that seemed to come from the thicket back of where the story-teller was sitting.
Everybody looked in that direction—everybody but Polly. She could not turn quickly, with Little Duke within the circle of one arm and Dolly Merrifield in the other. But Dolly screwed her head around just as a young man stepped into view.
“Sardis!” she squealed; “oh, Sardis!”
Then Dolly was in her brother’s arms, and quickly his hand and Polly Dudley’s met in a cordial grasp, while the eyes of the others were bent on the man who had kept them waiting to welcome him for more than twenty-four hours.