“Does he want you to come and make him a visit?” inquired Daisy, in a tone of breathless interest.
Miss Polly nodded.
“He and Helen want me to come and spend the summer. This is Tom’s fourth letter on the subject, and I have had two from Helen besides. I have had to make such foolish, shallow excuses, and now I am afraid Tom will be hurt, and think I don’t care to come to them.”
Miss Polly broke off abruptly, and hastily brushed away a tear. It was the first tear Daisy had ever seen the cheerful little invalid shed.
“Oh, dear Miss Polly,” she pleaded, “please, please don’t be unhappy. Why do you keep on not telling, when you know your brother loves you so much? Don’t send that horrid letter. Write another one, and tell him you’ll come. If you’re too tired to write, I’ll write for you, and you can tell me what to say. Oh, Miss Polly dear, please, please!”
But for once Miss Polly did not heed her little neighbor. She had buried her face in the pillow, and was sobbing as if her heart would break.
“It’s all my pride, my foolish, wicked pride,” she moaned. “I can’t bear to be a burden. I cannot bear to have Tom know how I have failed. He didn’t want me to come to New York by myself. We almost quarrelled about it. And all these years I have been deceiving him—letting him think I had succeeded in my plans—oh, my dear, my dear, I have done very wrong, and now I am ashamed to confess the truth.”
The tears of sympathy were streaming down Daisy’s own cheeks, but at these last words of Miss Polly’s she could not refrain from a little gasp of astonishment.
“But you haven’t failed,” she cried, eagerly. “Oh, how could you possibly think you had? You’re the most beautiful Christian we ever knew, and when your brother knows all about it, he’ll be so proud of you he won’t know what to do. We were talking about you yesterday, and Dulcie said she wished she could do something like that, just to make Papa proud of her. Oh, Miss Polly, please don’t cry any more; it makes me cry too, and I’m afraid it’ll bring my headache on again.”
“No, no, dear, I won’t,” and Miss Polly made a hasty search for her handkerchief. “I am a foolish little woman to say I know, but I haven’t been feeling very well lately, and I suppose things bother me more than they would otherwise. Now we are not going to talk any more about unpleasant things. I want to hear about Paul. Have you had a letter from him lately?”