“I am still an unbeliever,” smiled Mrs. Randolph. Then she pondered the subject in silence, straying far, far from the right path.
For a time matters went on at Sunrise Chalet without much change. Mrs. Randolph began to feel anxious about being away from home, although she appeared to be in the gayest of moods. David was growing more serious of deportment;—what his thoughts were nobody knew. Polly smiled to everybody alike, but lay awake nights wondering if this chain of tangles would ever be straightened out. Benedicta expressed her mind on more than one occasion.
“Isn’t it amazin’ queer,” she said, on the eighth day of Mrs. Randolph’s visit, “how some people can hang on to a place when they haven’t any requisition there at all! What’s the matter with that Collins feller, anyway? The Butterfly Lady was invited; but he wasn’t, was he?”
Polly shook her head.
“Then, why, by the authority of common sense, don’t he say good-bye, and trot?”
It was on the day after these remarks that Polly was near the window of the children’s ward when she heard footsteps on the veranda, and she held her breath. They were David’s footsteps! Why did she leave the veranda door open? She had supposed that David had gone away with Dr. Abbe. He had never ventured into the ward; still—
“You think a good deal of the Butterfly Lady, don’t you?” It was David’s voice.
Grissel and Esther had not been sleepy and had begged to be allowed to remain on the piazza during nap-time. So there they were still, playing with the paper dolls that Mrs. Randolph had brought them.
“I think she’s lovely,” responded Grissel.
“I suppose she will be going home pretty soon,” went on David’s voice.