“Ting, ling.
That's how the bells ring,
Ting, ling, pretty young thing.”
She paused, her hands clasped behind her head, and gazed at them with a brave, little smile. “Oh, it's going to be fine! Fine!”
“You don't know what you're doing,” said Douglas. He seized her roughly by the arm. Pain was making him brutal. “I won't LET you go! Do you hear me? I won't—not until you've thought it over.”
“I have thought it over,” Polly answered, meeting his eyes and trying to speak lightly. Her lips trembled. She could not bear for him to think her so ungrateful. She remembered his great kindness; the many thoughtful acts that had made the past year so precious to her.
“You've been awfully good to me, Mr. John.” She tried to choke back a sob. “I'll never forget it—never! I'll always feel the same toward you. But you mustn't ask me to stay. I want to get back to them that knew me first—to my OWN! Circus folks aren't cut out for parsons' homes, and I was born in the circus. I love it—I love it!” She felt her strength going, and cried out wildly: “I want Bingo! I want to go round and round the ring! I want the lights and the music and the hoops! I want the shrieks of the animals, and the rumble of the wheels in the plains at night! I want to ride in the big parade! I want to live and die—just die—as circus folks die! I want to go back! I want to go back!”
She put out one trembling hand to Jim and rushed quickly through the gate laughing and sobbing hysterically and calling to him to follow.
Chapter XII
LONELY days followed Polly's desertion of the parsonage. Mandy went about her duties very quietly, feeling that the little comments which once amused the pastor had now become an interruption to thoughts in which she had no part. He would sit for hours with his head in his hands, taking no notice of what passed before him. She tried to think of new dishes to tempt his appetite, and shook her head sadly as she bore the untasted food back to the kitchen.
She sometimes found a portfolio of drawings lying open upon his study table. She remembered the zeal with which he had planned to remodel the church and parsonage, when he first came to them; how his enthusiasm had gradually died for lack of encouragement; and how he had at last put his books in a cupboard, where they grew dusty from long neglect. She marvelled at their reappearance now, but something in his set, far-away look made her afraid to inquire. Thus she went on from day to day, growing more impatient with Hasty and more silent with the pastor.