"She will trouble us only by looking pale," said Mrs. Grey. "If she gets better as fast as we hope to have her she will trouble us no more than a little cricket on our hearth."
"We shall have to hide Polly from Aunt Azraella," said Wythie, returning from seeing Mrs. Flinders's departure. "If she disapproved of our extravagance in having a kitten, what will she say to a child in the house?"
"We always have plenty of what we don't want," said Rob. "We run no risk of impoverishing ourselves in sharing our deprivations with Pollykins."
"It's a funny little grey house, with all its bothers," said their mother. "It always seems to be able to bear a bit more—that often cheers me when I think it has almost more than it can bear."
"We have to go up to the attic, Pollykins, to put away lots and lots of old clothes—the oldest kind of old clothes!" said Rob, on her knees before Polly, unbuttoning the child's coat. "Some day, when it's warmer, or you're strong enough to go where it's cold, I'll show you the funniest old hats and bonnets and dresses you ever saw in all your little life! We don't like to put them away, but we must. Last night we dressed up in them, and danced, and so to-day we have to pay the fiddler—that means we have to pack them all away again, whether we like to or not. You won't mind if you have to stay here alone with Hortense, do you? That's the doll's name. By and by Prudy will come in, and we shall be down soon."
"I don't mind, Rob," said Polly, eying Hortense longingly. "I'll play house and rock that dolly. Does she shut her eyes?"
"Yes, indeed; goes to sleep like a good baby whenever she is bidden. Why, you're better already! You didn't feel like playing house when I saw you after dinner, did you?" cried Rob, delighted.
Polly shook her head with happy solemnity. "I never had such a nice doll," she said.
Mr. Grey came in looking pale and tired, but he smiled at white little Polly, and said, as he tipped up her chin: "Rob says you're little Polly Flinders who sat among the cinders, but I think she's turned you into a little coal of fire, right out of the cinders. Do you know what that means—to be a coal of fire?"
Polly smiled, evidently feeling it safer not to commit herself, and trustingly confident that whatever it meant to be a coal of fire, it was something pleasant.