“If I want to sit at all the bed is as snug a place as any,” replied Maggie. “But I’m not going to stay a moment, for it is very late. See, I have brought you this back.”
Polly looked, and for the first time observed that her own sealskin jacket hung on Maggie’s arm.
“What do you mean?” she said. “My sealskin jacket! Oh, my beauty! But it isn’t mine, it’s yours now. Why do you worry me—showing it to me again?”
“I don’t want to worry you, Miss Singleton. I mean what I say. I have brought your jacket back.”
“But it is yours—you bought it.”
“I gave a nominal price for it, but that doesn’t make it mine. Anyhow, I have no use for it. Please take it back again.”
Poor Polly blushed very red all over her face.
“I wish I could,” she said. “If there has been anything I regretted in the auction, besides getting all you girls into a mess, it has been my sealskin jacket. Dad is almost certain to ask me about it, for he never made me such a handsome present before. Poor dad! he was so proud the night he brought it home. He said, ‘Look here, Poll, I paid a whole sheaf of fivers for this, and although it cost me a good round eighty guineas, I’m told it’s cheap at the price. Put it on, and let me see how you look in it,’ he said. And when I had it on he twisted me round, and chucked me under the chin, and said I was ‘a bouncer.’ Poor old dad! He was as proud as Punch of me in that jacket I never saw anything like it.”
“Well, he can be as proud as Punch of you again. Here is the jacket for your very own once more. Good-night.”
She walked to the door, but Miss Singleton ran after her.