“I don’t feel like doing anything but going to bed,” she announced, with a sob. “My heart’s so heavy, I can’t take an interest in ordinary things.”
“It is pretty dreadful,” agreed Maud. “Aunt Julia thinks she will have to take Paul back to Boston. She’s afraid he’ll want to go on playing with us, and she says we aren’t fit to associate with him. I don’t think it’s quite fair to say all of us, when Daisy and I didn’t do a single thing. I wish Miss Polly would sing; it’s always comforting to hear music when you’re sad.”
“Let’s go and see Miss Polly,” exclaimed Daisy, with a sudden inspiration. “I haven’t heard the piano all day. Perhaps she isn’t well.”
Dulcie shook her head.
“I can’t go,” she said, mournfully. “I’ve cried so much my head aches, and my eyes are all swollen.”
“So are mine,” added Molly, “and I don’t feel like making calls any more than Dulcie does. You and Maud might go, though.”
“You go, Daisy,” coaxed Maud. “I don’t like that dark closet at night. Ask her please to sing ‘Only an Armor-Bearer,’ or ‘Pull For the Shore.’”
“All right,” said Daisy, good-naturedly, and after giving the afflicted Dulcie a sympathetic kiss on the back of her bowed head, she tripped away cheerfully on her errand.
The children had become quite accustomed to visiting their neighbor by this time, and the mysterious door in the wall had lost some of its original fascination. Still, there was always a certain thrill of excitement in turning the handle, and the sudden plunge into the housemaid’s closet next door. Daisy’s heart beat rather fast, as she groped her way amid brooms and dust-pans, and stepped out into the lighted hall. Outside Miss Polly’s door she paused for a moment, to make sure the little cripple was alone. Once they had heard voices, and had crept quietly away again, for if the landlady, or any one else in the boarding-house, were to discover their secret, who knew what might happen? It was possible that Miss Collins might have as strong an objection to an unlocked door between the houses as Grandma herself. But to-night all was quiet, and after a moment’s hesitation, Daisy knocked softly.
Instead of the usual sound of the wheel-chair being pushed across the room, a rather unsteady voice called, “Come in.”