Polly’s eyes were grave in an instant. As she put her head down on the broad shoulder nearest her, and rubbed her cheek on it, very much like a satisfied kitten.
“You’ll never lose me, grandfather. Don’t you know what mother always said? We were worse than twins, the way we always stood by each other, and chummed together. Don’t you remember?”
The Admiral stared at Balaam’s back in front of them. And then he coughed vigorously, and patted the hand on his knee. It was nearly four years since Polly’s mother had passed over the mysterious bourne, from which, we are told, no traveler returns. Polly had been ten then, and four aunts had offered separately to bring her up properly. But the Admiral had stood firmly on his rights, and Polly had remained at home with the Admiral, and her old mammy, Aunty Welcome, to give orders. Welcome had been in the family since Balaam was first made coachman, but no one could even guess her age.
“Doan’t ask me sech foolish questions, chile,” she used to say to Polly. “I dun kept ’count till I was ninety, den I lost track, and I ain’t had no buffday since.”
She stood at the entrance to the drive now, when the carriage turned into the grounds of Glenwood, the Admiral’s spacious home on the river bank. Nearly as tall as the Admiral she was, and spare and strong as some fine old weather-beaten pine. In spite of newer fashions, she wore her bandana folded turbanwise around her head, and beneath it a few gray wisps of hair could be seen. Her under lip protruded greatly, “jes’ on account of making dat chile behave herself,” she used to say. To-day, she was smiling grimly, and her deep-set eyes sparkled like old jet as she looked at the slender figure in white sitting up so sedately beside the Admiral.
“Don’t you know ’nuff to raise dat parasol, and pertect dis chile’s complexion, Admiral?” she demanded, haughtily. “Has I got to watch over her when she’s out of my sight? Ain’t she got a terrible leaning towards freckles anyway? Wouldn’t she look fine under her snow white bridal veil all brown freckles? I declar’ I’m ashamed of you, Admiral, I suttainly am.”
Polly laughed as she stepped from the carriage and, slipping one arm around the old figure, entered the big house. But Welcome scolded firmly all the way upstairs to the large, cool south chamber that had been Polly’s special domain ever since Welcome herself had carried her into it, a wee baby.
It was a delightful room, the dearest in all the world, Polly thought. The south windows overlooked the garden, and below the river gleamed like silver through the thick foliage and clambering vines. Over the old gray stone walls, rambled Virginia creeper, pushing its tendrils even around the window casements, and if one leaned far out, one might pick a cluster of sweet, old-fashioned climbing bride’s roses, from the vine that wound itself around the trellis just beneath Polly’s pet window.
“Aunty, don’t I look ’most grown-up?”
Polly stopped for a moment before the long mirror between the windows, and looked at herself thoughtfully.