Polly Oliver's Problem

by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

Suddenly Edgar's heart throbbed with a new feeling. He saw as in a vision the purity, fidelity, and tender yearning of a true woman's nature shining through a girl's eyes. In that moment he wished as never before to be manly and worthy. He seemed all at once to understand his mother, his sister, all women better, and with a quick impulsive gesture which he would not have understood a month before, he bent his head over astonished Polly's hand, kissed it reverently, then opened the door and went to his room without a word.

CHAPTER XI.

THE LADY IN BLACK.

"I 've had a little adventure," said Polly to her mother one afternoon. "I went out, for the sake of the ride, on the Sutler Street cable-cars with Milly Foster. When we came to the end of the line, Milly walked down to Greary Street to take her car home. I went with her to the corner, and as I was coming back I saw a lady in black alighting from an elegant carriage. She had a coachman and a footman, both with weeds on their hats, and she seemed very sad and grave; but she had such a sweet, beautiful face that I was sorry for her the first moment I looked at her. She walked along in front of me toward the cemetery, and there we met those boys that stand about the gate with bouquets. She glanced at the flowers as if she would like to buy some, but you know how hideous they always are, every color of the rainbow crowded in tightly together, and she looked away, dissatisfied. I don't know why she had n't brought some with her,--she looked rich enough to buy a whole conservatory; perhaps she had n't expected to drive there. However, Milly Foster had given me a whole armful of beautiful flowers,--you know she has a 'white garden:' there were white sweet peas, Lamarque roses, and three stalks of snowy Eucharist lilies. I need n't tell my own mother that I did n't stop to think twice; I just stepped up to her and said, 'I should like to give you my flowers, please. I don't need them, and I am sure they are just sweet and lovely enough for the place you want to lay them.'

"The tears came into her eyes,--she was just ready to cry at anything, you know,--and she took them at once, and said, squeezing my hand very tightly, 'I will take them, dear. The grave of my own, and my only, little girl lies far away from this,--the snow is falling on it to-day,--but whenever I cannot give the flowers to her, I always find the resting-places of other children, and lay them there. I know it makes her happy, for she was born on Christmas Day, and she was full of the Christmas spirit, always thinking of other people, never of herself.'

"She did look so pale, and sad, and sweet, that I began to think of you without your troublesome Polly, or your troublesome Polly without you; and she was pleased with the flowers and glad that I understood, and willing to love anything that was a girl or that was young,--oh, you know, mamacita,--and so I began to cry a little, too; and the first thing I knew I kissed her, which was most informal, if not positively impertinent. But she seemed to like it, for she kissed me back again, and I ran and jumped on the car, and here I am! You will have to eat your dinner without any flowers, madam, for you have a vulgarly strong, healthy daughter, and the poor lady in black has n't."

This was Polly's first impression of "the lady in black," and thus began an acquaintance which was destined before many months to play a very important part in Polly's fortunes and misfortunes.

What the lady in black thought of Polly, then and subsequently, was told at her own fireside, where she sat, some six weeks later, chatting over an after-dinner cup of coffee with her brother-in-law.

"Take the armchair, John," said Mrs. Bird; "for I have 'lots to tell you,' as the young folks say. I was in the Children's Hospital about five o'clock to-day. I have n't been there for three months, and I felt guilty about it. The matron asked me to go upstairs into the children's sitting-room, the one Donald and I fitted up in memory of Carol. She said that a young lady was telling stories to the children, but that I might go right up and walk in. I opened the door softly, though I don't think the children would have noticed if I had fired a cannon in their midst, and stood there, spellbound by the loveliest, most touching scene I ever witnessed. The room has an open fire, and in a low chair, with the firelight shining on her face, sat that charming, impulsive girl who gave me the flowers at the cemetery--I told you about her. She was telling stories to the children. There were fifteen or twenty of them in the room, all the semi-invalids and convalescents, I should think, and they were gathered about her like flies round a saucer of honey. Every child that could, was doing its best to get a bit of her dress to touch, or a finger of her hand to hold, or an inch of her chair to lean upon. They were the usual pale, weary-looking children, most of them with splints and weights and crutches, and through the folding-doors that opened into the next room I could see three more tiny things sitting up in their cots and drinking in every word with eagerness and transport.