Maidenhood and—”
“Girls, I’ve got it!”
In the doorway stood Polly, her curly hair, brown and glossy as a ripe chestnut, tied back in a cluster of long curls that reached to her waist, her brown eyes brimming over with mischief, and in her hand, wrapped carefully in a clean pillow case, was something the girls all recognized by its outlines.
“Girls, I’ve Got It!”
“I thought of it the very last minute,” went on Polly, quickly, “Annie May hid it the last time we used it, you know, and I forgot to ask her where she had put it. And she’s down in the back hall, crying over the girls who are leaving, so of course I couldn’t disturb her. So I hunted around the kitchen, in the wash boiler, and up in her room, then I guessed. You know the linen closet in the back hall. It was in there, way down under some gray blankets on the bottom shelf. Wasn’t she the wise old darling to put it under the gray ones, so it wouldn’t show if it should happen to get a spot on them! And then I heard Honoria calling me.”
“Whatever did you do, Polly?” whispered the girls, tensely.
“I slipped the chafing-dish into a pillow case, left it on the hall settee, and went to see what she wanted. And afterwards, Mrs. Yates sent for me to be introduced to her.”
“The Senator’s wife?” asked Isabel, eagerly.
“Yes’m. She used to be one of Miss Calvert’s girls when she was young, and she wanted specially to meet me for the sake of the Admiral. It’s dreadful, all the things I have to go through for the sake of that boy. She even said I looked like him.”