“May I go back to—to the—store again, please?”
“To the store? I don’t understand.”
“Where I was when Miss Cissy came. Mr. Phelps—he’s the superintendent—said I—he would take me back any time. He said I was a trustable—he said I was a good cash-girl and—and—— I’d like to go, if you don’t mind,” Polly murmured in broken breaths.
Mrs. Duer raised herself upon her elbow. “Ah, but I do mind,” she replied instantly. “On no consideration can you go back. In the first place you would have nowhere to stay—your sister at the hospital could not have you—and then,—but it is quite out of the question and we won’t discuss it further.”
Polly turned slowly and went toward the door. She had to grope her way because of the blur before her eyes that shut out everything, but at last she managed to lay her hand upon the knob and to turn it. The next moment she was in the cool, dim hall and the next—she had hung herself face downward on the great tiger-skin upon the polished floor and was crying as if her heart would break. No one saw her; no one heard her.
Mrs. Duer in the living-room was trying to rest. Priscilla was dozing in the darkened bedchamber up-stairs, with Hannah on guard and James was carrying down from the attic the trunks and traveling-bags that would be needed for the journey, and whistling cheerfully beneath his breath as he did it, for Mrs. Duer had told him he might take the occasion of her absence to go upon a little trip of his own and he was looking forward to his holiday as eagerly as if he had been a boy.
But in the midst of her misery Polly remembered the absurd little rhyme sister had repeated to her that last day at the hospital:
“Good little babies bravely bear a deal,
They hold their little heads up