“Had better have a little of this stale bread-and-butter then, dear?” proceeded Polly in a would-be anxious tone.
“Yes, if you will, dear. But you never like stale bread-and-butter.”
“I’ll eat it if you wish me to, Helen,” answered Polly, in a very meek, good little voice.
The two boys began to chuckle, and even Dr. Maybright looked at his second daughter in a puzzled, abstracted way. Helen, too, colored slightly, and wondered what Polly meant. But the young lady herself munched her stale bread with the most immovable of faces, and even held up the slice for Helen to scrutinize, with the gentle, good little remark—“Have I put too much butter on it, Nell? It isn’t right to waste nice good butter, is it?”
“Oh, Polly, how dreadful you are?” said Fly.
“What do you mean?” said Polly, fiercely.
She dropped her meek manners, gave one quick glare at the small speaker, and then half turning her back on her, said in the gentlest of voices, “What would you like me to do this morning, Helen? Shall I look over my history lesson for an hour, and then practise scales on the piano?”
“You may do just as you please, as far as I am concerned,” replied Helen, who felt that this sort of obedience was far worse for the others than open rebellion. “I thought you wanted to see father, Polly. He has just gone into his study, and perhaps he will give you ten minutes, if you go to him at once.”
This speech of Helen’s caused Polly to forget her role of the meek, obedient martyr. Her brow cleared.
“Thank you for reminding me, Nell,” she said, in her natural voice, and for a moment later she was knocking at the Doctor’s study door.