"Now, my dear Grey young ladies, all of you, for my daughter must be older than these lassies' mother, I have not many minutes to spare if I want to lunch in town, as I mean to do," began Mr. Armstrong. "I want to hear the history of the child whose singing last night was so remarkable."
"It is easily told, Mr. Armstrong," said Mrs. Grey. And she briefly related Polly's story, and that of the Flinders family.
Mr. Armstrong listened attentively. "Now, for my reasons for asking," he said. "I have a sum of money entrusted to me, the principal well invested, and the interest left for the education of young girls whose talents and industry make them worth helping. Your little Polly is certainly wonderfully gifted, and there is a gap now in the application of the money; we can take another girl at once. I propose to make your Polly Flinders—what an extraordinary name!—our next experiment. What do you say to it?"
"How could it be done?" asked Mrs. Grey considering, while Wythie and Rob flushed with pleasure over the proposition. "She is so little, so sensitive and frail that I do not feel like giving her over to strangers, even though her mother should consent to it."
"If you are willing to keep her here it would add the much-needed touch to our methods," said Mr. Armstrong. "There are five of us joined in administering this fund, of whom I am chairman, or president, or whatever you choose to call an informal board officer. Our trouble always is to find a place where our girls can get home training while they are educating, until they are old enough to be placed in a good boarding-school. If you will keep this child, I will see that the funds are provided for the musical education which she deserves. She should begin to be taught piano at once, and every year as she grows older suitable instruction shall keep step with her development. If she proves as talented as we now think her, and you will contribute her maintenance, as your part of her provision, the sum which her support would have cost shall be laid aside to send her to Germany to study, if, when she is grown, it seems better for her to go there."
"It is the most delightful thing I have heard in years, Mr. Armstrong," cried Mrs. Grey. "I have wondered and wondered whom we could interest in little Polly, and how we might get for her the training she should have. I have taught her the beginnings of the piano, and she recites her lessons daily to my daughter Oswyth, but we are not rich people, as you know, and I have never been able to see what I wanted to see in Polly's future. You have solved it, and I can't tell you how thankful I am. I must write her poor mother to-night; poor creature, she needs good tidings, I fear."
"I don't know what you call rich, my dear madam," said the old gentleman decidedly. "This little house has always seemed to me, and remained in my memory, as the most richly endowed spot I know. The money which is at my disposition can give the girl her opportunity in life, but you will give her far more than that; an education far surpassing mere schooling, and a training that will fit her to use her opportunity and to live her life aright. I suppose you would rather have the money given to crippled children." he added, turning sharply to Rob. "I'm sorry, but it is a trust fund, its purpose distinctly limited and defined."
"Indeed, I wouldn't rather have it used for cripples," cried Rob. "The one thing I ever wanted to do in this world—except to found a home for dogs and cats and horses—is to give girls a chance, girls who would use the chance and are hungry for it. To tell the truth I have drifted into cripples because Mr. Baldwin's daughter made me—she is the one who started all this. I have helped her, because, after all, I am sorry for maimed little things in those awful tenements and when a good cause takes hold of one and pulls one's hands—well, of course, you can't make a fist! But little girls, like Polly, or even bigger, appeal to me most. I don't want one penny of the fund for cripples, Mr. Armstrong. I haven't forgotten the days before you bought the invention, and how hungry I was for a chance, even with such people as my mother and the father you did not know. So I can imagine how girls feel who long for education and who have no home, or worse than none."
"I might have known that you would have cared more for minds and souls than for bodies, you strong, warm, sensitive child!" said Mr. Armstrong. "And I see that your quiet sister sympathizes with you, though I suspect that she dearly loves to comfort and cuddle suffering bodies. Now see here; about your cripple home," added Mr. Armstrong rising. "How much money have you?"
"We don't know yet, but enough to take care of three or four children anyway, if only we had a house for them," said Rob.