sitting down on the couch with the air of one who has escaped a
great peril.
“I ‘ve got some notes and things I want to ask your opinion about,
if they really mean anything, you know,” said Fanny, getting out a
bundle of papers from the inmost recesses of her desk. “There ‘s a
photograph of Tom, came in his last letter. Good, is n’t it? He
looks older, but that ‘s the beard and the rough coat, I suppose.
Dear old fellow, he is doing so well I really begin to feel quite
proud of him.”
Fan tossed her the photograph, and went on rummaging for a
certain note. She did not see Polly catch up the picture and look at
it with hungry eyes, but she did hear something in the low tone in
which Polly said, “It don’t do him justice,” and glancing over her
shoulder, Fan’s quick eye caught a glimpse of the truth, though
Polly was half turned away from her. Without stopping to think,
Fan dropped her letters, took Polly by the shoulders, and cried in a
tone full of astonishment, “Polly, is it Tom?”
Poor Polly was so taken by surprise, that she had not a word to say.
None were needed; her telltale face answered for her, as well as
the impulse which made her hide her head in the sofa cushion, like
a foolish ostrich when the hunters are after it.
“Oh, Polly, I am so glad! I never thought of it you are so good, and
he ‘s such a wild boy, I can’t believe it but it is so dear of you to
care for him.”
“Could n’t help it tried not to but it was so hard you know, Fan, you
know,” said a stifled voice from the depths of the very fuzzy
cushion which Tom had once condemned.
The last words, and the appealing hand outstretched to her, told
Fanny the secret of her friend’s tender sympathy for her own love
troubles, and seemed so pathetic, that she took Polly in her arms,
and cried over her, in the fond, foolish way girls have of doing
when their hearts are full, and tears can say more than tongues.
The silence never lasts long, however, for the feminine desire to
“talk it over” usually gets the better of the deepest emotion. So
presently the girls were hard at it, Polly very humble and
downcast, Fanny excited and overflowing with curiosity and
delight.
“Really my sister! You dear thing, how heavenly that will be,” she
cried.
“It never will be,” answered Polly in a tone of calm despair.
“What will prevent it?”
“Maria Bailey,” was the tragic reply.
“What do you mean? Is she the Western girl? She shan’t have Tom;
I ‘ll kill her first!”
“Too late, let me tell you is that door shut, and Maud safe?”
Fanny reconnoitered, and returning, listened breathlessly, while
Polly poured into her ear the bitter secret which was preying on her
soul.
“Has n’t he mentioned Maria in his letters?”
“Once or twice, but sort of jokingly, and I thought it was only
some little flirtation. He can’t have time for much of that fun, he ‘s
so busy.”
“Ned writes good, gossipy letters I taught him how and he tells me
all that ‘s going on. When he ‘d spoken of this girl several times
(they board with her mother, you know), I asked about her, quite
carelessly, and he told me she was pretty, good, and well educated,
and he thought Tom was rather smitten. That was a blow, for you
see, Fan, since Trix broke the engagement, and it was n’t wrong to
think of Tom, I let myself hope, just a little, and was so happy!
Now I must give it up, and now I see how much I hoped, and what
a dreadful loss it ‘s going to be.”
Two great tears rolled down Polly’s cheeks, and Fanny wiped them
away, feeling an intense desire to go West by the next train, wither
Maria Bailey with a single look, and bring Tom back as a gift to
Polly.
“It was so stupid of me not to guess before. But you see Tom