The Camp Fire Girls' Careers

CHAPTER XVI—“Moira”

The first scene of the play opened upon a handsome New York drawing room, where preparations were evidently being made for a ball, for the room was filled with flowers, and servants were seen walking in and out, completing the final arrangements. Within a few moments two girls wearing dainty tea gowns, stole quietly down the stairway and stood in the center of the stage, discussing their approaching entertainment. They were both pretty and fashionable young women, evidently about eighteen and twenty-one. From their conversation it soon became evident that they were of plain origin and making a desperate effort to secure a place for themselves among the “smart set” in New York City. Moreover, they were spending more money than they should in the effort. The father had been an Irish politician, but, as he had died several years before, no outsiders knew the extent of the family fortune. Upon the horizon there was a friend upon whom much depended. He was evidently a member of an old New York family and of far better social standing than the rest of their acquaintances; moreover, he was wealthy, handsome and agreeable and had paid the older of the two sisters, Kate, somewhat marked attention.

When after a few moments’ delay the second scene was revealed the ball had already begun. The stage setting was remarkably beautiful, the costumes charming and the dialogue clever. Yet so far the play had no poignant interest, so that now and then Betty found her attention wandering.

What could have made this little play such a pronounced success that the dramatic critics had been almost universal in their praise of it? she wondered. What special charm did it have which crowded the theater every evening as it was crowded tonight? It was only a frivolous society drama of a kind that must have been acted many times before.

Behind her lace handkerchief Betty gracefully concealed a yawn. Then she glanced across the theater toward Margaret Adams’ box, hoping she might catch another smile or nod from the great lady. But Miss Adams was leaning forward with her figure tense with interest and her eyes fastened in eager expectancy upon a door at the rear of the stage. Back of her, and it seemed to Betty even at this distance, that his face looked unusually white and strained, stood Richard Hunt. Assuredly he seemed as intent upon the play as Miss Adams.

Betty stared at the stage again. A dance had just ended, the guests were separating into groups and standing about talking. But a timid knock now sounded on the door which apparently no one heard. A moment later this door is slowly opened. There followed a murmur of excitement, a little electric thrill passing through the audience so that unexpectedly Betty found her own pulses tingling with interest and excitement. What a goose she had been! Surely she had heard half a dozen times at least that the success of this new play was entirely due to the charm and talent of the young actress, Peggy Moore, who took the part of the heroine.

At the open door the newcomer was seen hesitating. No one noticed her, then she walked timidly forward and stood alone in the center of the stage, one of the most appealing, delicious and picturesque of figures in the world of fiction or reality.

The girl was wearing an absurd costume, a bright red blouse, open at the throat, a plaid skirt too short for the slender legs beneath it and a big flapping straw hat decorated with a single rose. In one hand she carried an old-fashioned carpet bag and in the other a tiny Maltese kitten. The girl had two long braids of black hair that hung below her waist, scarlet lips, a white imploring face and wistful, humorous, tender blue eyes.

Betty was growing cold to the tips of her fingers, although her face flushed until it felt almost painful. Then she overheard a queer, half-restrained sound near her and the next instant Mrs. Wharton leaned forward from her place and placed a hand on her arm and on Mollie’s.

“Yes, girls, it is Polly!” she whispered quietly, although with shining eyes. “But please, please don’t stir or do anything in the world to attract her attention. It was Polly’s own idea to surprise you like this, and yet she is dreadfully afraid that the sight of you may make her break down and forget her part. She is simply wonderful!”

Naturally this was a mother’s opinion; however, nothing that Mrs. Wharton was saying was making the slightest impression, for neither Mollie nor Betty had heard a word.

For Moira, the little Irish girl, had begun to speak and everybody on the stage was looking toward her, smiling and shrugging their shoulders, except the two daughters of the house and their fashionable mother.

Moira had asked for her aunt, Mrs. Mulholland. She was not an emigrant maid-of-all-work, as the guests presumed her to be, but a niece of the wealthy household. She had crossed the ocean alone and was expecting a welcome from her relatives.

At this point in the drama the hero came forward to the little Irish maid’s assistance. Then her aunt and cousins dared not display the anger they felt for this undesired guest. Later it was explained that Moira had been sent to New York by her old grandfather, who, fearing that he was about to die, wished the girl looked after by her relatives. Moira’s father had been the son that stayed behind in Ireland. He had been desperately poor and the grandfather was supposed to be equally so. Then, of course, followed the history of the child’s efforts to fit herself into the insincere and unkind household.

Nothing remarkable in the story of the little play, surely, but everything in the art with which Polly O’Neill acted it!

Tears and smiles, both in writing and acting: these are what the artist desires as his true recognition. And Polly seldom spoke half a dozen lines without receiving one or the other. Sometimes the smiles and tears crowded so close together that the one had not sufficient time to thrust the other away.

“I didn’t dream the child had it in her: it is genius!” Margaret Adams whispered to her companion, when the curtain had finally fallen on the second act and she had leaned back in her chair with a sigh of mingled pleasure and relief.

“She had my promise to say nothing until tonight. Yes, I have been in the secret since last winter.” Richard explained. “It was a blessed accident Polly’s finding just this particular kind of play. She could have played no other so well while still so young. You see, she was acting in a cheap stock company when a manager happened quite by chance to discover her. But she will want to tell you the story herself. I must not anticipate.”

For a moment, instead of replying, Margaret Adams looked slightly amazed. “I did not know that you and Polly were such great friends, Richard, that she has preferred confiding in you to any one else,” she said at length.

Richard Hunt had taken his seat and was now watching the unconcealed triumph and delight among the group of Polly’s family and friends in the box across the theater.

“I wasn’t chosen; I was an accident,” the man smiled. “Last winter in Boston I met Polly—Miss O’Neill,” he corrected himself, “and she told me what she was trying to do, fight things out for herself without advice or assistance from any one of us. But, of course, after I was taken into her secret she allowed me to keep in touch with her now and then. The child was lonely and dreadfully afraid you and her other friends would not understand or forgive what she had tried to do.”

“Polly is not exactly a child, Richard; she must be nearly twenty-two,” Margaret Adams replied quietly.

In the final act the little Irish heroine had her hour of triumph. The hero had fallen in love with her instead of with the fashionable cousin. Yet Moira was not the pauper her relatives had believed her, for the old grandfather had recently died and his solicitor appeared with his will. The Irish township had purchased his acres of supposedly worthless land and Moira was proclaimed an heiress.

At the end Polly was her gayest, most inimitable, laughing self. Half a dozen times Betty, Mollie and Sylvia found themselves forgetting that she was acting at all. How many times had they not known her just as wilful and charming, their Polly of a hundred swift, succeeding moods.

Moira was not angry with any one in the world, certainly not with the cousins who had been almost cruel to her. During her stay among them she had learned of their need of money and was now quick to offer all that she had. She was so generous, so happy, and with it all so petulant and charming, that at last even the stern aunt and the envious cousins succumbed to her.

Then the curtain descended on a very differently clad heroine, but one who was essentially unchanged. Moira was dressed in a white satin made in the latest and most exquisite fashion; and her black hair was beautifully arranged on her small, graceful head. Only the people who loved her could have dreamed that Polly O’Neill would ever look so pretty. And in one hand the girl was holding a single red rose, though under the other arm she was still clutching her beloved Maltese cat.

“Polly will not answer any curtain calls tonight,” Mrs. Wharton whispered hurriedly when the last scene was over. “If the others will excuse us she has asked that only Sylvia, Betty and Mollie come to her room. Margaret Adams will be there, but no one else. She is very tired at the close of her performances, but she is afraid you girls may not forgive her long silence and her deception. Will you come this way with me?”

CHAPTER XVII—A Reunion

“Yes, it is perfectly thrilling and delightful, Mollie Mavourneen, and I never was so happy in my life, now that you know all about me and are not really angry,” Polly exclaimed gayly. “But I can tell you it wasn’t all honey and roses last winter, working all alone and being lonely and homesick and miserable most of the time. No one praised me or sent me flowers then,” and the girl looked with perfectly natural vanity and satisfaction at the big box of roses that had just been opened and was still lying on her lap. On her bureau there were vases of fresh flowers and several other boxes on a nearby table.

“Well, it must be worth any amount of hard work and unhappiness to be so popular and famous,” Mollie murmured, glancing with heartfelt admiration and yet with a little wistfulness at her twin sister. “Just think, Polly dear, we are exactly the same age and used to do almost the same things; and now you are a celebrated actress and I’m just nobody at all. I am sorry I used to be so opposed to your going on the stage. I think it perfectly splendid now.”

With a laugh that had a slight quaver in it Polly threw an arm about her sister and hugged her close. “You silly darling, how you have always flattered me and how dearly I do love it!” she returned, looking with equal admiration at the soft roundness of Mollie’s girlish figure and the pretty dimples in her delicately pink cheeks. “I am not a celebrated actress in the least, sister of mine, just because I have succeeded in doing one little character part so that a few people, just a few people, like it. I do wonder what Margaret Adams thought of me. She did not say much last night. She is coming to see me presently, so I am desperately nervous over what she will say. One swallow does not make a career any more than it makes a summer. And as for daring to say you are nobody, Mollie O’Neill, I never heard such arrant nonsense in my life. For you know perfectly well that you are a thousand times prettier, more charming and more popular than I am, and everybody knows it except you. But, of course, you never have believed it in your life, you blessed little goose!” and Polly pinched her sister’s soft arm appreciatively. “I wish there was as much of me as there is of you for one thing, Mollie darling, your figure is a perfect dream and I’m nothing in the world but skin and bones,” Polly finished at last, drawing her dressing jacket more closely about her with a barely concealed shiver.

From the foot of the bed Sylvia was eyeing her severely. “Yes, we had already noticed that without your mentioning it, Polly,” she remarked dryly.

Her only answer was a careless shrugging of her thin shoulders, as Polly turned this time toward Betty.

“What makes you so silent, Princess? You are not vexed with me and only said you were not angry last night to spare my feelings?” Polly asked more seriously than she had yet spoken. Even though Polly might believe that she loved her sister better, yet she realized that they could never so completely understand each other and never have perhaps quite the same degree of spiritual intimacy as she had with her friend.

Betty took Polly’s outstretched hand and held it lightly.

“I was only thinking of something; I beg your pardon, dear,” Betty replied quietly.

Polly frowned. “You are not to think of anything or anybody except me today,” she demanded jealously. “You have had months and months to think about other people. This is the best of what I have been working for—just to have you girls with me like this, and have you praise me and make love to me as Mollie did. Yes, I understand I am being desperately vain and self-centered, Princess; so you may think it your duty to take me to task for it. But it is only because I have always been such a dreadful black sheep among all the other Camp Fire girls. Then I suppose it is also because we have been separated so long. Pretty soon I’ll have to go back to the work-a-day, critical old world where nobody really cares a thing about me and where ‘my career,’ as Mollie calls it, has scarcely begun. But please don’t make me do all the talking, Betty, it is so unlike me and I can see that Sylvia thinks I am saying far too much.” Here Polly’s apparently endless stream of conversation was interrupted by a fit of coughing, which took all the color from her cheeks, brought there by the morning’s excitement, and left her huddled up among her pillows pale and breathless, with Sylvia’s light blue eyes staring at her with a somewhat enigmatic expression.

Betty smiled, however, pulling at one of the long braids of black hair with some severity. Last night it had seemed to her that Polly O’Neill was quite the most wonderful person in the world and that she could never feel exactly the same toward her, but must surely treat her with entirely new reverence and respect. Yet here she was, just as absurd and childish as ever and pleading for compliments as a child for sweets. No one could treat Polly O’Neill with great respect, though love her one must to the end of the chapter. She had a thousand faults, yet Betty knew that vanity was not one of them. It was simply because of her affection for her friends that she wished to find them pleased with her. In her heart of hearts no one was humbler than Polly. Betty at least understood that her ambition would never leave her satisfied with one success.

“But I was thinking of you, my ridiculous Polly!” Betty answered finally. “I regret to state, however, that I was not for the moment dwelling on your great and glorious career. Naturally no other Sunrise Hill Camp Fire girl may ever hope to aspire so high. I was wondering whether your mother allowed you to wander around by yourself last winter, and, if she did, how you ever managed to take proper care of yourself.”

“Dear me, hasn’t mother told you? Why of course I had a chaperon, child! Mollie, please ring the bell for me. She is a dear and is dreadfully anxious to meet all of you,” Polly explained. “But Sylvia took care of me too—would you mind not staring at me quite so hard all the time, Sylvia? I know I am better looking behind the footlights,” Polly now urged almost plaintively, for her younger sister was making her decidedly nervous by her continued scrutiny. “Betty, even you will hardly place me at the head of the theatrical profession at present,” she continued. “Though I am quite green with jealousy, I must tell you that Sylvia Wharton has stood at the head of her class in medicine, male and female, during this entire year and is confidently expected to come out first in her final examinations. I am abominably afraid that Sylvia may develop into a more distinguished Camp Fire girl in the end than I ever shall.”

There was no further opportunity at present for further personal discussion, for at this instant a tall, dark-haired woman with somewhat timid manners entered the room, where she stood hesitating, glancing from one girl’s face to the other.

“You know Sylvia, Mrs. Martins, so this is Mollie, whom you may recognize as being a good-looking likeness of me,” Polly began. “Of course this third person is necessarily Betty Ashton.”

From her place on the bed Sylvia had smiled her greeting, but Mollie and Betty of course got up at once and walked forward to shake hands with the newcomer.

Then unexpectedly and to Betty’s immense surprise, she found both of her hands immediately clasped in an ardent embrace by the stranger, while the woman gazed at her with her lips trembling and the tears streaming unchecked down her face.

“How shall I ever thank you or make you understand?” she said passionately. “All my life long I can never repay what you have done for me, but at least I shall never forget it.”

Betty pressed the newcomer’s hand politely, turning from her to Polly, hoping that she might in her friend’s expression find some clue to this puzzling utterance. Polly appeared just as rapt and mysterious.

“You are awfully kind and I am most happy to meet you,” Betty felt called on to reply, “but I am afraid you must have mistaken me for some one else. It is I who owe gratitude to you for having taken such good care of Polly.”

The Princess was gracious and sweet in her manner, but she could hardly be expected not to have drawn back slightly from such an extraordinary greeting from a stranger.

“Oh, my dear, I ought to have explained to you. You must forgive me, it is because I feel so deeply and that the people of my race cannot always control their emotions so readily,” the older woman protested. “It is my little girl, for whom you have done such wonderful things. She has written me that she is almost happy now that you have become her fairy princess. And in truth you are quite lovely enough,” the stranger continued, believing that at last she was making herself clear.

“I? Your little girl?” Betty repeated stupidly. “You don’t mean you are Angelique’s mother? But of course you are. Now I can see that you look like each other and your name is ‘Martins.’ It is curious, but I paid no attention to your name at first and never associated you with my little French girl.” Now it was Betty’s turn to find her voice shaking, partly from pleasure and also from embarrassment. “It was a beautiful accident, wasn’t it, for Angelique and I, and you and Polly to find each other? But you have nothing to thank me for, Mrs. Martins. Angel has given me more pleasure than I can ever give her. She has been so wonderful since she found something in life to interest her. Won’t you come to the cabin with me right away and see her? Mollie and Mrs. Wharton can surely look after Polly for a few days; besides she never does what any one tells her.”

Suddenly Betty let go her companion’s hand, swinging around toward the elfish figure in the bed. For Polly did look elfish at this moment, with her knees huddled up almost to her chin and her head resting on her hand. Her eyes were almost all one could see of her face at present, they looked so absurdly large and so darkly blue.

Betty seized the girl by both shoulders, giving her a tiny shake.

“Polly O’Neill, did you write me those anonymous letters about Angel last winter? Oh, of course you did! But what a queer muddle it all is! I don’t understand, for Angel told me that she had never heard of Polly O’Neill in her entire life until I spoke of you.”

“And no more she has, Princess,” returned Polly smiling. “Everybody sit down and be good, please, while I explain things as far as I understand them. You see Mrs. Martins and I met each other at the theater one evening where she had come to do some wonderful sewing for some one. Well, of course my clothes were in rags, for with all our Camp Fire training I never learned much about the gentle art of stitching. So Mrs. Martins promised to do some work for me and by and by we got to knowing each other pretty well. One day I found her crying, and then she told me about her little girl. A friend had offered to send Angelique to this hospital in Boston and Mrs. Martins felt she must let her go, as she could not make enough money to keep them comfortable. Besides Angelique needed special care and treatment. Of course she realized it was best for her little girl, yet they were horribly grieved over being separated.

“Just at this time, Miss Brown, whom mother had persuaded to travel with me all winter, got terribly tired of her job. So I asked Mrs. Martins if she cared to come with me. When she and mother learned to know and like each other things were arranged.

“Afterwards the heavenly powers must have sent you to that hospital, Betty dear, otherwise there is no accounting for it. Pretty soon after your first visit Angel wrote her mother describing a lovely lady with auburn hair, gray eyes and the most charming manner in the world, who had been to the hospital to see them, but had only said a few words to her. Yes, I know you think that is queer, Betty, but please remember that though Angelique knew her mother was traveling with an eccentric young female, she did not know my real name. I was Peggy Moore to her always, just as I was to you until last night. Can’t you understand? Of course I knew you were in Boston with Esther and Dick, and besides there could be only one Betty Ashton in the world answering to your description. Then, of course, Mrs. Martins and I both wanted to write and explain things to you dreadfully, yet at the same time I did not wish you to guess where I was or what I was doing. So I persuaded Mrs. Martins to wait; at the same time I did write you these silly anonymous letters, for I was so anxious for you to be particularly interested in Angel. I might have known you would have been anyway, you dearest of princesses and best,” whispered Polly so earnestly that Betty drew away from her friend’s embrace, her cheeks scarlet.

“I am going to another room with Mrs. Martins to have a long talk, Polly, while you rest,” Betty answered the next moment. “Mrs. Wharton said that we were not to stay with you but an hour and a half and it has been two already. You will want to be at your best when Margaret Adams comes to see you this afternoon.”

“If you mean in the best of health, Betty,” Sylvia remarked at this instant, as she got down somewhat awkwardly from her seat on the bed, “then I might as well tell you that Polly O’Neill is far from being even ordinarily well. She has not been well all winter; but now, with the excitement and strain of her first success, she is utterly used up. All I can say is that if she does not quit this acting business and go somewhere and have a real rest, well, we shall all be sorry some day,” and with this unexpected announcement Sylvia stalked calmly out of the room, leaving three rather frightened women and one exceedingly angry one behind her.

CHAPTER XVIII—Home Again

“Besides it is absurd and wicked of Sylvia to have frightened you so and I shan’t forgive her, even if she has been good as gold to me all her life. How can I give up my part and go away from New York just when I am beginning to be a tiny bit successful?” Then, overcome with sympathy for herself, Polly cast herself down in a heap upon a small sofa and with her face buried in the sofa cushions burst into tears.

Mrs. Wharton walked nervously up and down the room.

“I know it is dreadfully hard for you, dear, and I do realize how much I am asking, even if you don’t think so, Polly,” she replied. “Besides you must not be angry with Sylvia. Of course I have not taken the child’s opinion alone, clever as she is. Two physicians have seen you in the last few days, as you know, and they have both given me the same opinion. You are on the verge of a nervous breakdown. If you will give up now it may not be serious, but if you will insist upon going on with your work no one will answer for the consequences. It is only a matter of a few weeks, my dear. I have seen your manager and he is willing to agree to your stopping as long as it is absolutely necessary. Perhaps you may be well enough to start in again in the fall. Isn’t it wiser to stop now for a short rest than to have to give up altogether later on?” she urged consolingly.

As there was no answer from Polly, Mrs. Wharton’s own eyes also filled with tears. At the same moment Sylvia came up to her step-mother and patted her comfortingly on the shoulder. It was odd, but Sylvia rarely expressed affection by kissing or the embraces common among most girls. Yet in her somewhat shy caresses there was fully as deep feeling.

“Don’t worry, mother, things will turn out all right,” she now said reassuringly. “Of course it is pretty hard on Polly. Even I appreciate that. But it is silly of her to protest against the inevitable. She will save herself a lot of strength if she only finds that out some day. But I’ll leave you together, since my being here only makes her more obstinate than ever.”

As Sylvia was crossing the floor a sofa cushion was thrown violently at her from the apparently grief-stricken figure on the sofa. But while Mrs. Wharton looked both grieved and shocked Sylvia only laughed. Was there ever such another girl as her step-sister? Here she was at one instant weeping bitterly at the wrecking of her career, as she thought, and the next shying sofa cushions like a naughty child.

Once Sylvia was safely out of the way, Polly again sat upright on the sofa, drawing her mother down beside her. It was just as well that Sylvia had departed, for she was the one person in the world whom Polly had never been able to influence, or turn from her own point of view, by any amount of argument or persuasion. With her mother alone her task would be easier. Nevertheless Mrs. Wharton appeared singularly determined and Polly remembered that there had been occasions when her mother’s decision must be obeyed.

However, she was no longer a child, and although it would make her extremely miserable to appear both obstinate and unloving, it might in this single instance be absolutely necessary. How much had she not already endured to gain this slight footing in her profession? Now to turn her back on it in the midst of her first success, because a few persons had made up their minds that she was ill,—well, any sensible or reasonable human being must understand that it was quite out of the question.

So the discussion continued between the woman and girl, the same arguments being repeated over and over, the same pleading, and yet without arriving at any sort of conclusion. There is no knowing how long this might have kept up if there had not come a sudden knocking at the door.

Opening it the boy outside handed Mrs. Wharton a card.

“It is Mr. Hunt who has come to see you, Polly; shall I say you are not well? Or what shall I say? Of course it is out of the question for you to see any stranger, child. You have been crying until your face is swollen and your hair is in dreadful confusion,” Mrs. Wharton protested anxiously.

Polly unexpectedly scrambled to her feet. “Ask Mr. Hunt to wait a few minutes, please, mother, and then we will telephone down and tell him to come up. You see I had an engagement with him this afternoon and don’t like to refuse to see him. For once it is a good thing I have no pretensions to beauty like Betty and Mollie. Moreover, mother, I am obliged to confess to you that Mr. Hunt has seen me before, not only after I had been weeping, but while I was engaged in the act. You know he was about the only friend I saw all last winter, when I was so blue and discouraged with life. Besides, I am sure he will understand my point of view in this dreadful discussion we have just been having and will help me to convince you.”

Five minutes afterwards the celebrated Miss Polly O’Neill had restored her hair and costume to some semblance of order, although her eyes were still somewhat red and heavy, as well as her nose. Nevertheless she greeted her visitor without particular embarrassment. Mrs. Wharton, however, could not pull herself together so readily; so after a few moments of conventional conversation she asked to be excused and went away, leaving her daughter and guest alone.

Fifteen minutes passed, half an hour, finally an entire hour. All this while Mrs. Wharton, remaining in her daughter’s bedroom which adjoined the sitting room, could hear the sound of two voices.

Of course Polly did the greater share of the talking, but now and then Richard Hunt would speak for several moments at a time and afterwards there would be odd intervals of silence.

Mrs. Wharton could not hear what was being said, and she scarcely wished to return to the sitting room. She was still far too worried and nervous, although, having an engagement that must be kept, she wished to say good-by to Polly before leaving the hotel.

Richard Hunt rose immediately upon Mrs. Wharton’s entrance.

“I am ever so sorry to have made such a long visit,” he apologized at once, “and I hope I have not interfered with you. Only Miss O’Neill and I have been having a pretty serious and important talk and I did not realize how much time had passed.”

Polly’s eyes had been fastened upon something in the far distance. Now she glanced toward her guest.

“Oh, you need not apologize to mother for the length of your stay. When she hears what we have been discussing she will be more than grateful to you,” Polly interrupted.

“You see, mother, Mr. Hunt does not agree with me, as I thought he would. Who ever has agreed with me in this tiresome world? He also thinks that I must stop acting at once and go away with you, if my family and the doctors think it necessary. And he has frightened me terribly with stories of people who have nervous breakdowns and never recover. People who never remember the lines in their plays again or what part they are expected to act. So I surrender, dear. I’ll go away with you as soon as things can be arranged wherever you wish to take me.” And Polly held up both her hands with an intended expression of saintliness, which was not altogether successful.

“Bravo!” Richard Hunt exclaimed quietly.

Mrs. Wharton extended her hand.

“I am more grateful to you than I can express. You have saved us all from a great deal of unhappiness and I believe you have saved Polly from more than she understands,” she added.

The girl took her mother’s hand, touching it lightly with her lips. “Please don’t tell Mr. Hunt what my family think of my obstinacy,” she pleaded. “Because if you do, he will either have no respect for me or else will have too much for himself because I gave in to him,” she said saucily.

Yet it was probably ten minutes after Mr. Hunt’s departure before it occurred to Mrs. Wharton to be surprised over Polly’s unexpected surrender to a comparative stranger, when she had refused to be influenced by any member of her own family.

But now the question of chief importance was where should Polly go for her much needed rest? It was her own decision finally that rather than any other place in the world she preferred to return to Woodford to spend the summer months in the old cabin near Sunrise Hill.

CHAPTER XIX—Illusions Swept Away

“Betty,” a voice called softly, “bring your chair nearer to me. I have done my duty nobly for the past two hours and have not spoken a single, solitary word. So even the sternest of doctors and nurses can’t say I am unfaithful to my rest cure. Besides it is absurd, now when I am as well as any one else. Yes, that is much better, Betty, and you are, please, to gaze directly into my face while I am talking to you. I haven’t liked your fashion lately of staring off into space, as you were doing just recently and indeed on all occasions when you believe no one is paying any special attention to you.”

With a low curtsey Betty did as she was commanded. She even knelt down on the ground beside the hammock to look the more directly into the eyes of her friend. But as she continued, unexpectedly a slow color crept into her cheeks from her throat upwards until it had flushed her entire face.

“I declare, Polly,” she exclaimed jumping to her feet abruptly and sitting down in her chair again, “you make me feel as though I had committed some offence, though I do assure you I have been as good as gold, so far as I know, for a long, long time.”

Polly was silent a moment. “You know perfectly well, Betty, that I don’t think you have done anything wrong. You need not use that excuse to try and deceive me, dear, because it does not make the slightest impression. The truth is, Betty, that you have a secret that you are keeping from me and from every one else so far as I know. Of course there isn’t any reason why you should confide in me if you don’t wish. You may be punishing me for my lack of confidence in you last winter.”

This last statement was possibly made with a double intention. Betty responded to it instantly.

“Surely, Polly, you must know that would not make the slightest difference,” she returned earnestly. And then the next instant, as if fearing that she might have betrayed herself: “But what in the world makes you think I am cherishing a secret, you absurd Polly? I suppose you have had to have something to think about these past two months, when you have spent so much time lying down. Well, when I see how you have improved I am quite willing to have been your victim.”

With a quick motion the other girl now managed to sit upright, piling her sofa cushions behind her. Her color was certainly sufficiently vivid at this instant. But indeed she was so improved in every way that one would hardly have known her for the Polly O’Neill of the past year’s trials and successes. Her figure was almost rounded, her chin far less pointed and all the lines of fatigue and nervous strain had vanished from her face. But Polly’s temper had not so materially changed!

“It isn’t worth while to accuse me of having tried to spy into your private affairs, Princess,” she replied haughtily. “But if you do feel that I have, then I ask your pardon for now and all times. I shall never be so offensive again.”

There followed a vast and complete human silence. Then Polly got up from her resting place and went and put her arm quietly about her friend.

“Princess, I would rather that the stars should fall or the world come to an end, than have you really angry with me,” she murmured. “But you know I did not mean to offend you by asking you to confide in me, don’t you? Anyway I promise never, never to ask you again. Here, let me have the Woodford paper, please. I believe Billy brought us the afternoon edition. I wonder if he and Mollie will be gone on their boating expedition for long? They must have been around the lake half a dozen times already.”

As though dismissing the subject of their past conversation entirely from her mind, Polly, resuming her hammock, now buried herself in the columns of the Woodford Gazette. Apparently she had not observed that no reply had been made either to her accusation or apology. She could see that Betty was not seriously angry, which was the main thing.

“Get out your embroidery, Princess, and let me read the news aloud to you;” she demanded next. “I love to watch you sew. It is not because you do it so particularly well, but because you always manage to look like a picture in a book. Funny thing, dear, why you have such a different appearance from the rest of us. Oh, I am not saying that probably other girls are not as pretty as you are, Mollie and Meg for instance. But you have a different look somehow. No wonder Angel thinks you are a fairy princess.”

But at this moment an unexpected choking sound, that seemed in some fashion to have come forth from Betty, interrupted the flow of her friend’s compliments.

“Please don’t, Polly,” she pleaded. “You know I love your Irish blarney most of the time beyond anything in this world. But now I want to tell you something. I have had a kind of a secret for over a year, but it is past now and I’m dreadfully sorry if you believe you find a change in me that you don’t like. I suppose sometimes I do feel rather blue simply because I am of so little account in the world. Please don’t think I am jealous, but you and Sylvia and Nan and Meg are all doing things and Esther and Edith and Eleanor are married and Mollie helps her mother with your big house. I believe Beatrice and Judith are both at college, though we have been separated from them for such a long time. So you see I am the only good-for-nothing in the old Sunrise Hill Camp Fire circle.”

“Yes, I see,” was the somewhat curt reply from behind the outspread paper.

“Mrs. Martins told me yesterday that the surgeons Dr. Barton brought to see Angelique think she may be able to walk in another year or so and I believe Cricket is to give up her crutches altogether in a few months,” Polly presently remarked.

In the sunshine Betty Ashton’s face shone with happiness. “Yes, isn’t it wonderful?” she remarked innocently.

“Of course, doing beautiful things for other people isn’t being of the slightest use in the world,” the other girl continued, as though talking to herself. “Yet Mrs. Martins also said yesterday, that she and Angelique believed they had strayed into Paradise they were so happy here at the cabin with the prospect of Angel’s growing better ahead of them. And I believe Cricket dances and sings with every step she takes nowadays.”

“But I?” interrupted Betty.

“No, of course you have had nothing in the world to do with it and I never accused you for a single instant,” her friend argued, and then Polly fell to reading the paper aloud.

“‘The friends of Doctor and Mrs. Richard Ashton, now of Boston, Massachusetts, but formerly of Woodford, New Hampshire, will be delighted to hear of the birth of their son, Richard Jr., on July the fourteenth.’ How does it feel to be an aunt?” the reader demanded.

“Delicious,” Betty sighed, and then began dreaming of her new nephew, wondering when she was to be allowed to see him, until Polly again interfered with her train of thought.

“‘Mr. and Mrs. Frank Wharton entertained at dinner last night in their new home in honor of Mr. Anthony Graham, our brilliant young congressman who has returned to Woodford for a few days.’ Well, I like that!” Polly protested. “Think of Frank and Eleanor daring to give a dinner party and asking none of their other old friends or relatives. They must feel set up at being married before the rest of us.”

For the first time Betty now actually took a few industrious stitches in her embroidery. “Oh, they probably did not have but two or three guests. You know how papers exaggerate things, Pollykins, I would not be so easily offended with my relations,” she protested.

“No, but you used to be such an intimate friend of Anthony Graham’s. Do you know I look upon him as one of your good works, Betty? I wonder if he will condescend to come to the cabin to see us, now he is such a busy and distinguished person. Is he as much a friend of yours now as he used to be?”

Unexpectedly Betty’s thread broke, so that she was forced to make another knot before replying.

“Friend of mine? No, yes; well, that is we are friendly, of course, only Anthony has grown so fond of Meg Everett lately that he has not much time for any one else. But please don’t speak of anything I ever did for him, Polly. I beg it of you as a special favor. In the first place it was so ridiculously little and in the second I think it pretty hard on Anthony to have an unfortunate accident like that raked up against him now that he has accomplished so much.”

“Oh, all right,” Polly returned, thoughtfully digging into the earth with the toe of her pretty kid slipper.

“Good heavens, speaking of angels or the other thing!” she exclaimed, a moment later, “I do declare if that does not look like Anthony Graham coming directly toward us this instant. Do go and speak to him first, dear, while I manage to scramble out of this hammock.”

Ten minutes later Anthony was occupying the chair lately vacated by Betty, while Polly was once more in a reclining position. Knowing that she was still regarded as a semi-invalid, Anthony had insisted that she must not disturb herself on his account. He had explained that the reason for his call was to find out how she was feeling. So, soon after this statement, Betty had left the two of them together, giving as an excuse the fact that as she had invited Anthony to stay with them to tea she must go to the cabin to help get things ready.

After Betty’s disappearance Polly did not find her companion particularly interesting. He scarcely said half a dozen words but sat staring moodily up toward the dark branches of the enshadowing pine trees. This at least afforded Polly a fine opportunity for studying the young man’s face.

“You have improved a lot, Anthony,” she said finally. “Oh, I beg your pardon, I am afraid I was thinking out loud.”

Her visitor smiled. “Well, so long as your thoughts are complimentary I am sure I don’t mind,” he returned. “Keep it up, will you?”

The girl nodded. “There is nothing I should like better. You know it is odd, but the Princess and I were talking about you just when you appeared. I must say I am amazed at your prominence, Anthony. I never dreamed you would ever amount to so much. It was funny, but Betty used always to have faith in you. I often wondered why.”

This time her companion did not smile. “I wish to heaven then that she had faith in me now, or if not faith at least a little of her old liking,” he answered almost bitterly. “For the last year, for some reason or other, Miss Betty has seemed to dislike me. She has avoided me at every possible opportunity. And I have never been able to find out whether I had offended her or if she had merely grown weary of my friendship. I have been so troubled by it that I have made a confidant of Miss Everett and asked her to help me if she could. I thought perhaps if Betty—Miss Betty, I mean—could see that Meg Everett liked me and was willing to be my intimate friend, that possibly she might forgive me in time. But it has all been of no use, she has simply grown colder and colder. And I fear I only weary Miss Everett in talking of Miss Betty so much of the time. She recently told me that I did.”

Polly’s lips trembled and her shoulders shook. What a perfectly absurd creature a male person was at all times and particularly when under the influence of love!

The next moment the girl’s face had strangely sobered.

“You are not worthy to tie her shoe-string, you know, Anthony; but then I never have seen any one whom I have thought worthy of her. Most certainly neither Esther nor I approved of the nobility as represented by young Count Von Reuter.”

Aloud Polly continued this interesting debate with herself, apparently not concerned with whether or not her companion understood her.

“Certainly I am unworthy to tie any one’s shoe-string,” the young man murmured finally, “but would you mind confiding in me just whose shoe-string you mean?”

From under her dark lashes half resentfully and half sympathetically the girl surveyed the speaker. “You have a sense of humor, Anthony, and that is something to your credit,” she remarked judicially. “Well, much as I really hate to say it, I might as well tell you that I don’t think the Princess dislikes you intensely, provided you tell her just why you have been so intimate with Meg for these past months. No, I have nothing more to say. Only I am going down to the lake for half an hour to join Mollie and Billy Webster and if you wait here you may have a chance of speaking to Betty alone when she comes to invite us in to tea.”

Then quietly Polly O’Neill strolled away with every appearance of calmness, although she was really feeling greatly perturbed and distressed. Certainly something must have worked a reformation in her character, for although she positively hated the idea of Betty Ashton’s marrying, had she not just thrust her deliberately into the arms of her fate. Yet, of course, her feeling was a purely selfish one, since she had no real fault to find with Anthony. So if Betty loved him, he must have his chance.

Then with a smile and a sigh Polly once more shrugged her shoulders, which is the Irish method of acknowledging that fate is too strong for the strongest of us. She reached the edge of the lake and madly signaled to Mollie and Billy to allow her to enter their boat. They were at no great distance off and yet were extremely slow in approaching the shore. Evidently they seemed to feel no enthusiasm for the newcomer’s society at the present moment.

“I thought you were asleep, Polly,” Mollie finally murmured in a reproachful tone, while Billy Webster eyed his small canoe rather doubtfully.

“She won’t carry a very heavy load, Miss Polly,” he remarked, drawing alongside. Polly calmly climbed into the skiff, taking her seat in the stern.

“I can’t sleep all the time, sister of mine,” she protested, once she was comfortably established, “much as I should like to accommodate my family and friends by the relief from my society. And as for my being too heavy for your canoe, Billy Webster, I don’t weigh nearly so much as Mollie. So if you think both of us too heavy, she might as well get out and give me a chance. You have been around this lake with her at least a dozen times already this afternoon. Besides, I really have to be allowed to remain somewhere.”

Plainly Mollie’s withdrawal from the scene had no place in Billy’s calculations, for without further argument he moved out toward the middle of the pond.

CHAPTER XX—Two Engagements

Never had there been definite understanding between Anthony and herself. Indeed she had always refused even to listen to any serious expression of his affection for her. Long ago there had been a single evening after her return from Germany, when together they had watched the moon go down behind Sunrise Hill, an evening which she had not been able to forget. Yet she had only herself to blame for the weakness, since if Anthony had forgotten, no girl should cherish such a memory alone.

Now here was an opportunity for proving both her courage and pride. With the thought of her old title of Princess, Betty’s cheeks had flamed. How very far she had always been from living up to its real meaning. Yet she must hurry on and cease this absurd and selfish fashion of thinking of herself. A cloud had come swiftly up out of the east and in a few moments there would be a sudden July downpour. Often a brief storm of wind and rain closed an unusually warm day in the New Hampshire hills.

Under no circumstances must Polly suffer. Only a week before had Mrs. Wharton been persuaded to leave Polly in their charge when she and Mollie had both promised to take every possible care of her.

Suddenly Betty began running so that she arrived quite breathless at her destination. Her face was flushed, and from under the blue ribbon her hair had escaped and was curling in red-brown tendrils over her white forehead. Then at the entrance to the group of pines, before she has even become aware of Polly’s disappearance, Anthony Graham had unexpectedly caught hold of both her hands.

“Betty, you must listen to me,” he demanded. “No, I can’t let you go until I have spoken, for if I do you will find some reason for escaping me altogether as you have been doing these many months. You must know I love you and that I have cared for no one else since the hour of our first meeting. Always I have thought of you, always worked to be in some small way worthy even of daring to say I love you. Yet something has come between us during this past year and it is only fair that you should tell me what it is. I do not expect you to love me, Betty, but once you were my friend and I could at least tell you my hopes and fears. Is it that you are engaged to some one else and take this way of letting me know?”

Still Anthony kept close hold of the girl’s hands, and now after her first effort she made no further attempt to draw herself away. His eyes were fixed upon hers with an expression that there was no mistaking, yet something in the firm and resolute lines about his mouth revealed the will responsible for Anthony Graham’s success and power. Quietly he now drew his companion closer beneath the shelter of the trees, for the first drops of rain were beginning to fall.

“But I am still your friend, Anthony. You are mistaken in thinking that anything has come between us. As for my being engaged to some one else that is quite untrue. I only thought that you and Meg were so intimate that you no longer needed me.” For the first time Betty’s voice faltered.

Anthony was saying in a tone she should never forget even among the thousands of incidents in their crowded lives, “I shall always need and want you, Betty, to the last instant of created time.” Then he brought both her hands up to his lips and kissed them. “Meg was only enduring my friendship so that I might have some one with whom I could talk about you.”

Suddenly Anthony let go Betty’s hands and stepped back a few paces away from her. His face had lost the radiant look of a brief moment before.

“Betty, a little while ago you told me that you were still my friend and that no one had come between us, and it made me very happy. But I tell you honestly that I do not think I can be happy with such an answer for long. Two years ago, when you and I together watched the moon over Sunrise Hill, I dared not then say more than I did, I had not enough to offer you. But now things are different and it isn’t your friendship I want! Ten thousand times, no! It is your love! Do you think, Betty, that you can ever learn to love me?”

Now Betty’s face was white and her gray eyes were like deep wells of light.

“Learn to love you, Anthony? Why I am not a school girl any longer and I learned that lesson years and years ago.”

When the storm finally broke and the thunder crashed between the heavy deluges of rain neither Anthony nor Betty cared to make for the nearby shelter of Sunrise cabin. Instead they stood close together laughing up at the sky and at the lovely rain-swept world. Once Betty did remember to inquire for the vanished Polly, but Anthony assured her that Polly had joined Mollie and Billy half an hour before and that they would of course take the best possible care of her.

Nevertheless at this instant Polly O’Neill was actually floundering desperately about in the waters of Sunrise Lake while trying to make her way to the side of their overturned skiff. Billy Webster, with his arm about Mollie, was swimming with her safely toward shore.

“Don’t be frightened, it is all right, dear. I’ll look after Polly in a moment,” he whispered encouragingly.

Returning a few moments later Billy discovered his other companion, a very damp and discomfited mermaid, seated somewhat perilously upon the bottom of their wrecked craft.

“I never knew such behavior in my life, Billy Webster,” she began angrily, as soon as she was able to get her wet hair out of her mouth. “The idea of your going all the way into shore with Mollie and leaving me to drown. You might at least have seen that I got safe hold of your old boat first.”

“Yes, I know; I am sorry,” Billy replied, resting one hand on the side of his skiff and so bringing his head up out of the water in order to speak more distinctly. “But you see, Polly, I knew you could swim and Mollie is so easily frightened and it all came so suddenly, the boat’s overturning with that heavy gust of wind. To tell you the truth, I didn’t even remember you were aboard until Mollie began asking for you. I wonder if you would mind helping me get this skiff right side up. It would be easier for us to paddle in than for me to have to swim with you.”

Gasping, Polly slid off her perch.

“After that extra avalanche of cold water nothing matters,” she remarked icily. However, her companion did not even hear her.

Safe on land again, Polly waited under a tree while the young man pulled his boat ashore. Her sister had gone ahead to send some one down with blankets and umbrellas. In spite of the rain, damp clothes and the shock of her recent experience, Polly O’Neill was not conscious of feeling particularly cold.

“I hope you are not very uncomfortable, and that our accident won’t make you ill again,” Billy Webster said a few moments later as he joined her. “I suppose I do owe you a little more explanation for having ignored you so completely. But you see, just about five minutes before you insisted on getting into our boat Mollie had promised to be my wife. We did not dare talk very much after you came on board, but you can understand that I simply wasn’t able to think of any one else. You see I have loved Mollie ever since that day when we were children and she bound up the wound you had made in my head.”

Once more Polly gasped slightly, and of course she was beginning to feel somewhat chilled.

Billy Webster looked at her severely. “Oh, of course I did think I was in love with you, Polly, for a year or so, I remember. But that was simply because I had not then learned to understand Mollie’s true character. I used to believe it would be a fine thing to have a strong influence over you and try to show you the way you should go.” Here Billy laughed, and he was very handsome with his damp hair pushed back over his bronzed face and his wet clothes showing the outline of his splendid boyish figure, matured and strengthened by his outdoor life.

“But you see, Polly, I believe nobody is ever going to be able to influence you to any great extent,” he continued teasingly, “and at any rate you and I will never have half the chances to quarrel that we would have had if we had ever learned to like each other. I forgive you everything now for Mollie’s sake.”

For half a moment Polly hesitated, then, holding out her hand, her blue eyes grew gay and tender.

“Thank you, Billy,” she said, “for Mollie’s sake. If you make her as happy as I think you will, why, I’ll also forget and forgive you everything.”

Fortunately by the time Mrs. Martins and Ann had arrived with every possible comfort for the invalid. And so Polly was borne to the cabin in the midst of their anxious inquiries and put to bed, where neither her sister nor Betty were allowed to see her during the evening.

If either of the girls suffered from the deprivation of her society there was nothing that gave any indication of unhappiness in either of the two faces.

CHAPTER XXI—At the Turn of the Road

She was walking alone along a path beyond the grove of pine trees one Sunday morning about ten days later. She wore no hat and her dress was of plain white muslin without even a ribbon belt for decoration. She had a bunch of blue corn flowers, which she had lately gathered, pinned to her waist and was looking particularly young and well.

Yet for the first time since her home coming Polly had recently been feeling somewhat lonely and neglected. There was at present absolutely no counting on Mollie for anything. Billy had always made demands upon her time when they were simply friends, but since their engagement had been announced there was never an entire afternoon or even morning when Mollie was free. In answer to Polly’s protests that she was only to be at home during the summer and so would like to see her only sister alone now and then, Billy had explained that early August was the only month in which he had any real leisure and that he and Mollie must therefore make plans for their future at once. Moreover, as it was self-evident that her sister preferred her fiancé’s society to her own, Polly had been forced to let the matter drop.

Then a week before, Betty had gone to Boston to see Esther and her new nephew, which was discouraging for her friend. For as Anthony had been too busy to come to the cabin except in the evenings, Polly had the Princess to herself during the day time.

She had promised Betty to stay on at the cabin until her return, as the simple, outdoor life seemed to be doing her so much good; nevertheless, Polly had determined to go into Woodford in the next few days and persuade her mother to take her away unless things at the cabin became more interesting. She was now rested and entirely well and more than anxious to get back to her work again, since the friends on whom she had depended were at present too absorbed to give her much of their time or thought.

“Well, Margaret Adams always told me that ‘a career’ was a lonely kind of life,” Polly thought to herself. “But oh, what wouldn’t I give if Margaret should appear at this moment at the turn of that road. She must have had my letter on Friday begging her to come and perhaps she had no other engagement. It will be delightful, too, if she brings Mr. Hunt along with her. I told her to ask him, as Billy can make him comfortable at the farm. I should like him to see Sunrise cabin and the beautiful country about here.”

Polly had finally come to the end of her lane and beyond could see the road leading out from the village. She was a little weary, as she had not walked any distance in several months until this morning. There was a convenient seat under the shade of a great elm tree that commanded a view of the country and she had her magazine with her and could hear the noise of an approaching motor car or carriage, should Margaret have decided to come.

Again Polly fell to memorizing the poem she had been trying to learn during her stroll. It was good practice to get back into the habit of training her memory, and the poem seemed oddly descriptive of her present world.

  “Tonight, upon my somber gaze
  With gleam of silvered waters lit,
  I feel as if I well could praise
  The moon——”

Here Polly was interrupted by the sound of a voice saying:

“My dear Miss Polly, I never dreamed of finding you so well. Why, if you only had the famous torn hat and rake you would pass for Maud Muller any day!”

With a cry of welcome Polly jumped to her feet.

“Mr. Hunt, I am so glad to see you and so surprised!” she exclaimed. “Please explain how you managed, when I have been watching for you and Margaret all morning, to arrive without my knowing?”

“But we have not arrived, and I hope you won’t be too greatly disappointed at my coming alone. You see it is like this. I happened to be calling on Miss Adams when your note came and she told me that I had been included in your invitation. Well, it was impossible for Miss Adams to spend this week end with you as she was going off on a yachting party with some of her rich admirers, so I decided to run down and see you alone. It was not so remarkable my coming upon you unawares, since I walked out from the village. Please do sit down again and tell me you are glad to see me.”

Polly sat down as she was bid, and Richard Hunt, dropping on the ground near her, took off his hat, leaning his head on his hand like a tired boy.

“Come, hurry, you haven’t said you were glad yet, Miss Polly,” he protested.

Polly’s eyes searched the dark ones turned half-teasingly and half-admiringly toward her.

“Do you mean, Mr. Hunt, that you came all the way from New York to Woodford just to see me?” she asked wonderingly. “And that you came alone, without Margaret or any one else?”

Her companion laughed, pushing back the iron gray hair from his forehead, for his long walk had been a warm one.

“I do assure you I haven’t a single acquaintance concealed anywhere about me,” he declared. “But just the same I don’t see why you should feel so surprised. Don’t you know that I would travel a good many miles to spend an hour alone with you, instead of a long and blissful day. Of course I am almost old enough to be your father——”

“You’re not,” Polly interrupted rather irritably. Yet in spite of her protest she was feeling curiously shy and self-conscious and Polly was unaccustomed to either of these two emotions. Then, just in order to have something to do, she carelessly drew the bunch of corn flowers from her belt and held them close against her hot cheeks.

“Mr. Hunt,” she began after a moment of awkward silence, “don’t think I am rude, but please do not say things to me like—” the girl hesitated—“like that last thing; I mean your being willing to travel many miles to spend an hour alone with me. You have always been so kind that I have thought of you as my real friend, but of course if you begin to be insincere and flatter me as you would some one whom you did not honestly like, I——”

Polly ceased talking at this instant because Richard Hunt had risen quickly to his feet and put forth his hand to assist her.

“Let us go on to your cabin,” he replied gravely. “You are right. I should not have said a thing like that to you. But you are wrong, Polly, in believing I was insincere. You see, I grew to be pretty fond of you last winter and very proud, seeing with what courage you fought your battles alone.” Richard Hunt paused, walking on a few paces in silence. “I shall not worry you with the affection of a man so much older than you are,” he continued as though having at last made up his mind to say all that was in his heart and be through. “Only at all times and under all circumstances, no matter what happens, you are to remember, Polly, that you are and always shall be first with me.”

“I—you,” the girl faltered. “Why I thought you cared for Margaret. I never dreamed—” then somehow Polly, who had always so much to say, could not even finish her sentence.

“No, of course you never did,” the man replied gravely. “Still, I want you to know that Margaret and I have never thought of being anything but the best of friends. Now let us talk of something else, only tell me first that you are not angry and we will never speak of this again.”

“No, I am not displeased,” Polly faltered, looking and feeling absurdly young and inadequate to the importance of the situation.