"Another what, Roberta?" Lydia asked with her customary gravity.
"Another who has lately married. It doesn't matter; I had been reckoning up how many seemed to have been stricken with the epidemic; that's all," said Rob.
"What you are meant to do, you do, Roberta, and it's not an epidemic," returned Lydia. "It is a state of great blessedness when the brethren dwell together in it in unity."
The sound of a piano ceased from within and Polly, growing taller and with an awakening look on her pale face, rushed out to greet Rob with the ardour of her intense and hidden nature. Rob folded the little girl in her arms with more than usual tenderness.
"Dear Polly, did Cousin Peace think I had broken my promise? I had to go to Wythie's first, you know," she said.
"No; we weren't looking for you so soon; I thought I should get through practising before you came," said Polly. "Maraine is waiting for you."
Maraine was the title by which Rob had solved the difficulty of what Polly should call Miss Charlotte, "for, though she was not really your godmother—I doubt your having a godmother, Pollykins,—she is near enough a fairy godmother to deserve the name," she said.
"Very well; take me to her, Polly," Rob said now, and followed Polly to Miss Charlotte, whose soft voice and gentle, unseeing face, raised to smile at her, fell on Rob's perturbed spirit like the balm which she always found Cousin Peace.
"What has happened, Robin dear?" asked Cousin Peace instantly. "What troubles you?"