The newsboy chuckled. Baby Cicely, in her mother’s arms, crowed lustily and Polly uttered a sharp cry of joy—for there, just before her—not two yards away—stood sister! Smiling and happy and—well!
Nobody could understand how it had all come about, perhaps because nobody could keep still long enough to listen to explanations, but one can be very, very glad and thankful without quite understanding just the way the things have occurred that make one so.
Mrs. Bell would not hear of Polly’s protector leaving her house till he had promised faithfully to come back again as soon as he had sold out his “Extry ’Dition! Evenin’ Papers!” But when he had given his word and gone whistling away she set about getting Polly something to eat, for it was easy to see, in spite of her joy and excitement, that the child was worn out with fatigue and faint from hunger.
It was nothing less than luxury to sit in Mrs. Bell’s best chair, sipping cool, fresh milk and eating a soft-boiled egg and buttered bread, and seeing sister walk—really walk (somewhat slowly, to be sure, and with the help of a stick, as yet) but still walk—back and forth and about the room.
Then, little by little, everything began to explain itself. Polly’s coming to town on account of the telegram that had never been sent (at which gentle sister’s eyes shot sparks of righteous indignation); her meeting with her old enemy, who proved such a friend (at which sister’s eyes grew soft again); sister’s having left the hospital the day before, because she was entirely cured and because Miss Cicely had arranged to take her up to the country the following morning as a surprise for Polly, and Mrs. Bell having the dearest little flat in the world because her husband had got a good position in Mr. Cameron’s office and could afford to give her a comfortable home now, in which she had begged to be allowed to entertain sister the first day she was out of the hospital. It all seemed very wonderful and yet very simple, when the tangles were unraveled. Even the cloud that had hung over Polly since Priscilla’s accident seemed to grow lighter when sister knew of it and pointed out the way to explain the matter to Mrs. Duer. “We ought to send a dispatch to her at once,” Ruth Carter declared. “She will be anxious about you, dear,” but Polly soon explained that Priscilla, her mother and Hannah were still at the seashore and would not be back for a week at least, and that as they had not known she was absent they would hardly worry about her safety. So it was decided to wait until to-morrow when Polly would go up to the country with Miss Cicely and sister and they would all three be there together to welcome the travelers on their return.
So, while Priscilla and her mother and Hannah were spending the dolefulest of evenings in the great country-house, Polly and sister and little Cicely’s parents and Jim Conroy, the newsboy, were having the happiest of ones in the little city flat.
Priscilla, in her lonely night-nursery, fell asleep at last with her cheek pressed against one of Polly’s old pinafores, which she had smuggled into bed with her and was clasping lovingly to her breast, while Mrs. Duer and Hannah sat up late, talking and planning about the next day and the hurried trip to the city in search of Polly that both of them felt should be made without delay. As it happened they were both so tired that when they did, finally, go to bed, they slept so soundly that they were late in waking the next morning and Mrs. Duer missed her train.
Her plan had been to go, directly upon reaching the city, to the store where she felt pretty confident Polly had meant to return. But now this idea must be given up and she must think of another way to get news of the child. She sent a telegram to the firm and within an hour received the reply:
“Polly Carter left us in spring. Know nothing of her present whereabouts.”