“Oh, I am sure they would,” cried Polly, “if you would like it, dear Mrs. Sterling.”
“Like it!” Mrs. Sterling turned her thin face to the wall for a moment. When she looked again at Polly, there were tears trickling down the wasted cheeks. “Polly, you don't know,” she said brokenly, “how I just long to hear young voices here in this dreary old house. To lie here day after day, child—”
“Oh!” cried Polly suddenly, “it must be so very dreadful, Mrs. Sterling.”
“Well, don't let us speak of that,” said Mrs. Sterling, breaking off quickly her train of thought, “for the worst isn't the pain and the weakness, Polly. It's the loneliness, child.”
“Oh!” said Polly. Then it all rushed over her how she might have run in before, and taken the other girls if she had only known. “But we will come now, dear Mrs. Sterling,” she said aloud.
“Do,” cried Mrs. Sterling, and a faint color began to show itself on her thin face, “but not unless you are quite sure that the young people will like it, Polly.”
“Yes, I am sure,” said Polly, with a decided nod of her brown head.
“Then why couldn't you hold some of your rehearsals here?” proposed Mrs. Sterling.
“Shouldn't we tire you?” asked Polly.
“No, indeed!” declared Mrs. Sterling, with sudden energy, “I could bear a menagerie up here, Polly,” and she laughed outright.