“Did you, may be, know any one at the ’ospittle besides your sister?”
“Only Mrs. Bell.”
“Who’s Mrs. Bell?”
“She’s the mother of little Cicely. She isn’t at the hospital any more. Miss Cissy said she had moved into a nice little flat.”
“Where?”
Polly gave the street and number.
The newsboy hailed a trolley and the next moment they were flashing up-town as fast as electricity would take them. She was too bewildered to know how or where they went, but blindly followed her leader and let him pilot her from one car to another without a word.
Dazed by the heat and her hunger, and stunned by the blow she had received at the hospital, Polly did not even realize that they had reached the street in which, Miss Cissy said, Mrs. Bell lived and was not conscious of the fact that her companion had rung the bell of the ground-floor flat and that they were standing before the door waiting for it to be opened to them. But, in another moment her wits returned, for the door was flung open, a flood of mellow sunlight streamed into the dim hall in which they stood, and Mrs. Bell’s hearty voice, full of amazement, was crying out:
“Why, Polly!—Polly Carter! What brings you here?”