"Here you are!" cried Polly, plunging through the trees as she caught sight of Margery's pink dress. "You have n't any hats to swing, so please give three rousing cheers! The house is rented and a lease signed for a year!"
"That is good news, indeed!" exclaimed Mrs. Noble, laying down her needle. "And who is the tenant?"
"Whom do you suppose? Mrs. Chadwick herself! She has been getting on very nicely with the housekeeping (part of the credit belongs to me, but no one would ever believe it), and the boarders have been gradually weaned from mamma and accustomed to the new order of things, so they are tolerably content. Ah Foy also has agreed to stay, and that makes matters still more serene, since he is the best cook in Santa Barbara. Mrs. Chadwick will pay eighty-five dollars a month. Dr. George thinks we ought to get more, but mamma is so glad to have somebody whom she knows, and so relieved to feel that there will be no general breaking up of the 'sweet, sweet home,' that she is glad to accept the eighty-five dollars; and I am sure that we can live in modest penury on that sum. Of course Mrs. Chadwick may weary in well-doing; or she may die; or she may even get married,--though that's very unlikely, unless one of the boarders can't pay his board and wants to make it up to her in some way. Heigho! I feel like a princess, like a capitalist, like a gilded society lady!" sighed Polly, fanning herself with her hat.
"And now you and your mother will come to us for a week or two, as you promised, won't you?" asked Mrs. Noble. "That will give you time to make your preparations comfortably."
Polly took a note from her pocket and handed it to Mrs. Noble: "Mrs. Oliver presents her compliments to Mrs. Noble, and says in this letter that we accept with pleasure Mrs. Noble's kind invitation to visit her. Said letter was not to be delivered, in case Mrs. Noble omitted to renew the invitation; but as all is right, I don't mind announcing that we are coming the day after to-morrow."
"Oh, Polly, Polly! How am I ever to live without you!" sighed Margery. "First Elsie, then Bell, now you!"
"Live for your Art with a big A, Peggy, but it's not forever. By and by, when you are a successful artist and I am a successful something, in short, when we are both 'careering,' which is my verb to express earning one's living by the exercise of some splendid talent, we will 'career' together in some great metropolis. Our mothers shall dress in Lyons velvet and point-lace. Their delicate fingers, no longer sullied by the vulgar dishcloth and duster, shall glitter with priceless gems, while you and I, the humble authors of their greatness, will heap dimes on dimes until we satisfy ambition."
Mrs. Noble smiled. "I hope your 'career,' as you call it, will be one in which imagination will be of use, Polly."
"I don't really imagine all the imaginations you imagine I imagine," said Polly soberly, as she gave Mrs. Noble's hand an affectionate squeeze. "A good deal of it is 'whistling to keep my courage up.' But everything looks hopeful just now. Mamma is so much better, everybody is so kind, and do you know, I don't loathe the boarders half so much since we have rented them with the house?
"They grow in beauty side by side,
They fill our home with glee.