Dr. Dudley and Miss French looked up to see Polly standing in the doorway.
“That is,” she added, “if father thinks I am competent.” She had appeared to be addressing the nurse; now her eyes met the physician’s.
“You are perfectly capable, as far as that goes; there is no acute illness there. But you might not wake if you were needed.”
“Of course I should!” she declared. “I wake very easily.”
“You can try it. I dare say to-morrow we can find somebody.”
“I’ll be ready right away,” she told Miss French, and ran upstairs.
Polly opened softly the door of Paradise Ward. The dozen small occupants were in bed, and a dim night-lamp was burning. The nurse who had made ready for the night had flitted away to those that were waiting for her. Polly did not think her entrance had awakened anybody; but a small head was raised from its pillow, and a voice called out in a low, delighted tone, “’Llo, Mi’ Duddy!”
The girl hastened across the room, to pat the mop of yellow hair and to hush any tendency to talk. She was acquainted with little Marmaduke Bill, and she knew the importance of cutting off his flow of prattle before it became an uncontrollable stream.
“So long you didn’ come, Mi’ Duddy, My thought My should die.”
Polly smiled down on him, and said softly, “Now you will go to sleep, for I shall be right here all night.”