I want my Polly to ‘hold her little head up, no matter how she feels,’ for that is the only brave way, you know.”
Polly felt a lump rising in her throat. “I’ll try,” she whispered.
Then Hannah brought out a basket packed full of dainties, which Mrs. Duer had sent, and nothing would do but they must have a tea-party, to which sister insisted upon inviting Polly, Hannah, the nurse and the mother of the “nice little baby.”
While Polly went to carry the invitations Hannah hurriedly asked, “You are better, though, aren’t you really? Oh, I hope so, miss.” Sister’s eyes brimmed with gratitude. “I hope so too,” she said hesitatingly. “The doctors are giving me a little rest now because they say I couldn’t stand any more pain for a while. I tried very hard to be courageous; ‘to bravely bear a deal,’ you know; ‘to hold my little head up no matter how I felt,’ but they say I’ll have to rest for a few weeks. By and by they are going to try again, and then, if my strength holds out, I may really get better. They say there is a chance—just think what that means! a chance that I may be able to walk again! It makes me too happy!”
Hannah caught up the basket and hid her face behind the cover, while she pretended to be very busy taking out the hidden goodies.
Polly thought that it was the jolliest tea-party in the world, though she, herself, ate hardly anything at all because she was so occupied with the wonderful mite of a baby which she was permitted to hold in her own arms, just as if she had been a grown-up woman. Its mother seemed to see at once that she was reliable and could be trusted, and that, in itself, was an honor to be proud of. The baby, too, seemed to have confidence in her new nurse, for she smiled and gurgled and blinked her eyes and did all the dear, ridiculous things that babies do, and then fell fast asleep in Polly’s lap, with her little hands clinched tight into two tiny fists, as if she meant to stand up and fight anybody who said she wasn’t the biggest and bravest baby in all the town.
“What’s her name?” whispered Polly at last when the mite was too sound asleep to be disturbed by her voice.
“She hasn’t got a name yet,” answered her mother. “No name seems quite pretty enough. Do you know of any name you think would be nice? What is the loveliest name you know?”
“I know lots,” returned Polly confidently. “There’s Hannah! Hannah is a fine name. And Ruth! Ruth is sister’s name. Then I think Edith is just sweet and Priscilla is most the grandest one I ever heard. But, I know the one I love the best—it’s Cicely! Did you ever hear of a handsomer name than Cicely? If you could call this baby Cicely I think it would be perfectly splendid.”
The little young mother did not answer at once. She seemed to be considering. But suddenly she gave a decided nod of her head. “Well then,” she announced firmly, “I’ll call the baby Cicely. I’m sure she’d like to be named by so good a little girl as you are. So Cicely she will be called, Cicely Bell. They go nicely together, don’t they, without any middle name to interfere? When she wakes I’ll tell her her name’s Cicely.”