“That’s good,” she said coolly, “who is it?”
“Ah! I won’t tell, or she’d be running off,” said the lad; “but if any fellow cuts in ahead of me, I’ll throw him downstairs. Miss Polly, if I was to kiss her hand, you know, would she be mad at me?”
“Yes, I think she would,” rejoined Polly. “There are my aunts, who have come up for the New Year wishes; it must be near twelve.”
Sally and Susan had been busy in the kitchen over the supper, all the evening, but at this moment appeared in the doorway, to see the Old Year out and the New Year in, smiling and radiant in the new dresses which Frau Anna had made for them.
“Aunt Susan looks so very pale,” said Polly uneasily, “I am afraid she has been working too hard. I ought to have stayed and helped them, but they were both so kind, and the music sounded so bright and cheering,”—
“There was so little to do,” said Franz, “the supper was mostly ready”—
At this moment something—perhaps a dynamite bomb, as Polly had said,—exploded on the stage, and Polly found her hand suddenly seized and kissed.
“Prosit Neujahr! Miss Polly,” cried Franz; “I hope you may be as happy as I would like to make you.”
Polly had no time to be angry; indeed she was half stunned by the “Prosits” and handshakings going on all around her. But through it all there rang all at once a shrill, grief-stricken cry.
“Not now, Susan! Oh! not now, when we were goin’ to be so happy!”