“No good!” broke in Polly. “Give me a better.”

“Well—this should really have come first—I ought not to leave Nelson—”

“Nonsense! He’s perfectly well, isn’t he?”

“Yes, only—”

“No ‘onlys’ allowed. I told you I’d manage him. Is that all?”

Miss Crilly was laughing, and Mrs. Randolph followed.

“You’d be the same old Polly if you lived to be a hundred,” she said. “Truly, dear, I don’t see how I can—”

“It’s all settled,” announced the girl quietly—“you and Miss Crilly are going to stay a week, anyway—maybe longer.”

They began to demur, but Polly laughingly held up a warning finger. And immediately she branched off into plans for the next few days.

“We’ll go to Mirror Lake for one place,” she told them. “I wish I could include Mr. Randolph and the boys in my invitation. I could eat them, as—who is it says that?—but I can’t sleep them.”