Accordingly, instead of going to the trunk-room, she ran down the three flights of stairs to the dining-room, and out through the open French window, to the little balcony, from which a flight of steps descended to the back yard. It was a large sunny yard, and in old Dr. Winslow’s time had been quite a garden, but Grandma did not take much interest in flowers, and there was little of the garden left, except a syringa-bush and a few rose-bushes, which seldom bloomed until after the family had gone away for the summer. It was Mary’s Sunday out, but Bridget was entertaining visitors in the kitchen. Daisy could hear their voices, as she hastily plucked a small bunch of the fragrant flowers. She dared not take many, lest Grandma should notice, and ask awkward questions. She was just turning back to the steps, when her ear caught some words uttered by one of Bridget’s visitors.
“She’s awful bad,” the woman was saying; “I don’t believe she’ll last the summer through. It’s a terrible pity, for a sweeter, kinder little thing never lived in this world, and as to her patience, stayin’ all day long, with never a soul to speak to, it just makes you ashamed to complain about anything yourself.”
Daisy stood still, and her heart gave a sudden throb. Could they be talking of Miss Polly? She remembered that Bridget and Mary knew some of the servants in the boarding-house next door.
“Ain’t she got nobody belongin’ to her?” Bridget asked, sympathetically.
“She’s got a brother somewhere, but I guess he don’t care much about her. He never comes to see her, anyhow. If Miss Collins was at home I wouldn’t worry, but she’s gone off to take care of her sick sister in Virginia, and Mrs. Brown, who’s looking after the house while she’s away, don’t take no more interest in poor little Miss Polly than if she wasn’t there at all. Why, the poor thing don’t eat enough to keep a canary alive, and she’s gettin’ paler and thinner before your eyes.”
“I suppose you wouldn’t dare have a doctor to see her, would you, Maggie?” put in another voice.
What Maggie answered Daisy did not wait to hear. She had heard enough already, and her heart was very heavy, as she mounted the steps, with her precious flowers. Until that moment she had not realized how much she had grown to love Miss Polly.
“She mustn’t die, oh, she mustn’t!” thought the little girl, winking back the rising tears. “Oh, if she would only write to her brother, and tell him all about everything!” And she thought of the kind, handsome face in the photograph on Miss Polly’s bureau.
But by the time she reached her friend’s door, she had succeeded in controlling the desire to cry, although her voice had not quite its usual cheerful sound. Miss Polly seldom came to the door now, and this afternoon she was not even in her wheel-chair, but lying upon her bed, reading her Bible. But her greeting was as hearty as ever, and she buried her face in the bunch of syringa, with a little cry of delight.
“Oh, my dear,” she said, joyfully, “you don’t know what a pleasure you have brought me. It is so odd; I was dreaming last night of my old home in Vermont, and I could see the syringa-bush that grew by the parsonage gate. It was all so real that when I woke it seemed as if I must have really been there. Would you mind putting these in water for me? There’s an extra glass on the wash-stand. I can’t bear to have them fade, and if you stand the glass on the little table beside my bed, I can look at them and smell them all the evening. I am afraid I have been very lazy to-day. It was so warm this morning, and I felt so tired, that I thought I would just lie in bed for a while, and later it seemed hardly worth while getting up for such a few hours. It’s Maggie’s day out, too, and I don’t like to trouble her more than I can help. Oh, how nicely you have arranged the flowers! Now come and sit down, and tell me all about what you have been doing lately.”