Suddenly she became conscious of what sounded like a masculine step behind her, and before she could turn around felt her two arms firmly grasped by a pair of capable hands and herself swung slowly about.
She faced a figure not so tall as her own, but broader, stronger and far more sturdy. The blue eyes looked at her through a pair of spectacles, the flaxen hair was parted in the middle and without the least sign of a crinkle drawn straight back on either side. The mouth was firm, but curiously kind. And just now it actually showed signs of trembling.
"Why, Sylvia Wharton!" Polly said and straightway hid her face in the fur of her stepsister's long coat. Immediately she had a feeling of dependence on Sylvia's judgment and affection just as she had for so long a time, although she was several years the older.
"Don't try to hide your face from me, Polly O'Neill. I want to see how you are looking before you get back into the house and do your best to deceive me. I can feel already that you are thin as a rail," Dr. Sylvia murmured severely. "You see if I don't straighten you out before you go back to that wretched work again!"
"It was good of you to come, Sylvia; I was so disappointed over your letter this morning. Only I am not your patient, dear; I am quite all right. It is 'Bobbin,' my poor little girl, I want you to look after and find somebody to help," Polly returned with unaccustomed meekness. "Really she is interesting and unusual. Both Mollie and Billy Webster think so; it isn't only my foolishness. I suppose you thought my bringing her east with me was rather mad, didn't you, Sylvia?"
Sylvia smiled the slow smile that had always beautified her plain face. "No, not mad, only Polly!" she answered dryly. "But of course I'll look the little girl over for you, and then I'll find the best person to see her and you can send her to me in Philadelphia. Only don't think you are going to escape by that method yourself."
On Christmas Eve all the grown-up members of the Christmas party dined with Mrs. Ashton and Betty in the town of Woodford, since Mollie was to have the tree and Christmas dinner for them and the children on the farm the next day.
It was an amusing change from the past to find that Anthony Graham and Sylvia Wharton were really the lions of the evening. How different it had been in the old days when Anthony was only an awkward, shabby, obscure boy and Sylvia the plainest and most unprepossessing of the Sunrise Hill Camp Fire girls!
Polly and Betty too, in spite of her wounded feelings, were both immensely pleased and amused by it.
Of course Sylvia would rather have died than have mentioned the fact, but quite by accident Anthony had read the previous day of Sylvia's election as President of the American Medical Society, the highest honor that had ever been paid a woman in the medical profession in the United States.