Polly arose. “Let’s not talk about it. Run downstairs, dear; I am going to put on my riding habit. Will you see if the horses will be ready at eleven? Aunt Betty and I are going to ride over the country together. I can’t walk very far and it is our best chance for discovering our old haunts. I knew every inch of this country once as a girl and want to see our old Sunrise Hill cabin again. Don’t speak of what has happened.”
Then as Peggy started to leave, her aunt thrust the delayed gifts for herself and Dan into her hand. They were two ten-dollar bills.
Afterwards when Peggy had gone, she nervously counted over her money; Billy had taken only ten dollars—her usual gift to him. For even this she was thankful. But for what purpose had the boy needed money in such a hurry? And why had she discovered him on the night of her arrival waiting alone at the side of the road when he should have been at home with his family?
Well, perhaps it was best to have found out Billy’s peculiarities before taking him away with her. Nevertheless, Mrs. Burton was profoundly sorry. Certainly the boy needed help of some kind. Yet she would probably not be equal to the problem of suddenly adopting a large and nearly grownup family of girls.
“Fools rush in,” Polly smiled and then sighed. “But, after all, I won’t have an opportunity for worrying over my own health very often.”
Then she went down to the living room.
CHAPTER IV
The April Woods
“Again the blackbirds sing; the streams
Wake, laughing, from their winter dreams,
And tremble in the April showers