“Oh, but James wins back his boy again!” cried Polly, delightedly.
“I want to know, Mr. Dalken,” demanded Eleanor, frowning, “did Ruth Ashby know the truth about this when she told us that yarn about Martha?”
Mr. Dalken laughed. “No, girls. Poor Ruth is as upset about it as you could wish her to be. She wants me to adopt Billy, anyway, even with his real father on hand to claim him. I really think Mrs. Ashby is the one we have to put through the third degree on this whole plot.”
Mrs. Ashby looked up and smiled. “Well, I told the truth about the matter, didn’t I? But I refrained from telling Ruth that Martha was the same woman who was aunt to Billy, and I withheld the facts that Billy was the same baby that you girls found on your door-step—that’s all.”
“That’s all——” laughed Mr. Dalken. “As if that was not enough! To deprive me of the son my two pet girls tried to place in my arms.”
Polly flung herself in his arms and hugged him as she said, “Nolla and I will have to adopt you ourselves, now.”
And he whispered in her ear, so only she could hear: “You haven’t any idea how happy you girls make me. I have found something in life worth while, since I found all of these good friends.”
Then Mrs. Ashby said: “Dalk, you have been hunting for a reliable man and wife to take charge of your apartment, so I think it is Providence that sent Martha and James to you. You will have admirable help in them and little Billy, too.”
CHAPTER XVII—POLLY AND ELEANOR LEAVE FOR EUROPE
“I do declare! here it is the first of May, and it seems as if it were but yesterday that we came back to New York to study,” exclaimed Eleanor, as Polly and she were returning from art class one evening.