'His wife called him Heriot; yes, I know, he told me—but I am so young, and he—well, he is not exactly old, Aunt Milly, but——'
'Do you love him, Polly?—child, do you really love him?' and for a moment Mildred put the girl from her with a sort of impatience and irritation of suspense. Polly's pretty face was suffused with hot blushes when she came back to her place again.
'He asked me that question, and I told him yes. How can one help it, and he so good? Aunt Milly, you have no idea how kind and gentle he was when he saw he frightened me.'
'Frightened you, my child?'
'The strangeness of it all, I mean. I could not understand him for a long time. He talked quite in his old way, and yet somehow he was different; and all at once I found out what he meant.'
'Well?'
'And then I got frightened, I suppose. I thought how could I satisfy him, and he so much older and cleverer. He is so immeasurably above all my girlish silliness, and so I could not help crying a little.'
'Poor little Polly! but he comforted you.'
'Oh yes,' with more blushes, 'he talked to me so beautifully that I could not be afraid any more. He said that for years this had been in his mind, that he had never forgotten how I had wanted to live with him and take care of him, and how he had always called me "his sweet little heartsease" ever since. Oh, Aunt Milly, I know he wants me. It was so sad to hear him talk about his loneliness.'
'You will not let him be lonely any longer. I have lost my Polly, I see.'