“But that isn’t forever and forever,” sighed Polly. “And mamma and dad and grandmamma and everybody else want you, too.”
“Are you sure of that?” asked the lady, kissing the upturned face.
“Oh, very sure!” replied Polly, positively. “They say it’s all nonsense for you to go to the hospital and take care of sick people. It’s—it’s something—I don’t remember what.”
“Stubborn pride?” suggested Marraine, with a merry sparkle in her eyes.
“Yes,” said Polly, “that’s just what grandmamma said. And stubborn pride is something bad; isn’t it, Marraine?”
“Well, yes, it is,” agreed Marraine,—“when it is stubborn pride, Pollykins. But when one has empty hands and empty purse and—well, an empty life, too, Pollykins, it is not stubborn pride to try to fill them with work and care and pity and help.”
“And that is what you do at the hospital, Marraine?”
“It is what I try to do, Pollykins. When my dear father died, and I found all his money gone, this beautiful home of yours opened its doors wide for me; dad, mamma, grandma, everybody begged me to come here. But—but it wasn’t my real home or my real place.”
“Oh, wasn’t it, Marraine?” said Polly, sadly.
“No, dear. In our real home, our real place, God gives us work to do,—some work, even though it be only to bless and love. But there was no work for me here; and so I looked around, Pollykins, for my work and my place. If I had been very, very good, I might have folded my butterfly wings under a veil and habit, and been a nice little nun, like Sister Claudine.”