The sight of her mother actually in bed in the daytime gave Polly a sensation as of a cold hand clutching at her heart, and she ran for Dr. Edgerton in an agony of fear. But good "Dr. George" (as he was always called, because he began practice when his father, the old doctor, was still living) came home with her, cheered her by his hopeful view of the case, and asked her to call at his office that afternoon for some remedies.
After dinner was over, Polly kissed her sleeping mother, laid a rose on her pillow for good-by, and stole out of the room.
Her heart was heavy as she walked into the office where the doctor sat alone at his desk.
"Good-day, my dear!" he said cordially, as he looked up, for she was one of his prime favorites. "Bless my soul, how you do grow, child! Why you are almost a woman!"
"I am quite a woman," said Polly, with a choking sensation in her throat; "and you have something to say to me, Dr. George, or you would n't have asked me to leave mamma and come here this stifling day; you would have sent the medicine by your office-boy."
Dr. George laid down his pen in mild, amazement. "You are a woman, in every sense of the word, my dear! Bless my soul, how you do hit it occasionally, you sprig of a girl! Now, sit by that window, and we 'll talk. What I wanted to say to you is this, Polly. Your mother must have an entire change. Six months ago I tried to send her to a rest-cure, but she refused to go anywhere without you, saying that you were her best tonic."
Two tears ran down Polly's cheeks.
"Tell me that again, please," she said softly, looking out of the window.
"She said--if you will have the very words, and all of them--that you were sun and stimulant, fresh air, medicine, and nourishment, and that she could not exist without those indispensables, even in a rest-cure."
Polly's head went down on the windowsill in a sudden passion of tears.