Daisy complied, but as she talked, telling of the little every-day happenings, it seemed as if her heart grew heavier and heavier. How thin Miss Polly’s hands were, and there surely did not used to be those great hollows in her cheeks. Try as she might, she could not always keep the quiver out of her voice. Miss Polly’s quick ear did not fail to notice the fact.
“What is it, dearie?” she asked gently, laying a soft little hand on Daisy’s. “Is something troubling you? Don’t you feel well to-day?”
“Not very,” Daisy admitted, glad of this excuse; “I’ve had a headache all day. I had to go out of church before the sermon, and Grandma didn’t like it. I think she was afraid I pretended my head was worse than it was, but I didn’t really.”
“I am sure you didn’t,” said Miss Polly, smiling, “although I have heard of ‘Sunday headaches’ before. My brother Tom used to have them when he was a boy, and Father finally cured him by insisting that if he were not able to go to church, he must go to bed, and stay there for the rest of the day. It proved quite a wonderful cure.”
Daisy laughed, but in a moment she was grave again.
“I wish Grandma would believe us,” she said. “We don’t tell stories, but she thinks we do, and it makes Dulcie so angry. We try to remember that she’s an old lady, and that we are only her step-grandchildren, anyway, but it is a little hard sometimes, especially when we know she doesn’t like having us stay with her. Paul heard his mother say we were an incumbrance. Dulcie looked up that word in the dictionary, and it means the same thing as being a burden.”
Involuntarily Miss Polly’s thin fingers closed more tightly over the little hand she was holding.
“How soon is your father coming home?” she asked abruptly.
Daisy’s face brightened.
“Oh, we are very happy about that,” she said; “we think he may come this summer. He hasn’t promised, but in his last letter he said we might see him sooner than we expected, and we expected him next winter, anyway.”