dreaming over book or sewing alone, than to exert herself even to
go to the Shaws’.
“Fan don’t need me, and Sydney don’t care whether I come or not,
so I ‘ll keep out of the way,” she would say, as if to excuse her
seeming indolence.
Polly was not at all like herself that winter, and those nearest to
her saw and wondered at it most. Will got very anxious, she was so
quiet, pale and spiritless, and distracted poor Polly by his
affectionate stupidity, till she completed his bewilderment by
getting cross and scolding him. So he consoled himself with Maud,
who, now being in her teens, assumed dignified airs, and ordered
him about in a style that afforded him continued amusement and
employment.
Western news continued vague, for Fan’s general inquiries
produced only provokingly unsatisfactory replies from Tom, who
sang the praises of “the beautiful Miss Bailey,” and professed to be
consumed by a hopeless passion for somebody, in such half-comic,
half-tragic terms, that the girls could not decide whether it was “all
that boy’s mischief,” or only a cloak to hide the dreadful truth.
“We ‘ll have it out of him when he comes home in the spring,” said
Fanny to Polly, as they compared the letters of their brothers, and
agreed that “men were the most uncommunicative and provoking
animals under the sun.” For Ned was so absorbed in business that
he ignored the whole Bailey question and left them in utter
darkness.
Hunger of any sort is a hard thing to bear, especially when the
sufferer has a youthful appetite, and Polly was kept on such a short
allowance of happiness for six months, that she got quite thin and
interesting; and often, when she saw how big her eyes were
getting, and how plainly the veins on her temples showed,
indulged the pensive thought that perhaps spring dandelions might
blossom o’er her grave. She had no intention of dying till Tom’s
visit was over, however, and as the time drew near, she went
through such alternations of hope and fear, and lived in such a
state of feverish excitement, that spirits and color came back, and
she saw that the interesting pallor she had counted on would be an
entire failure.
May came at last, and with it a burst of sunshine which cheered
even poor Polly’s much-enduring heart. Fanny came walking in
upon her one day, looking as if she brought tidings of such great
joy that she hardly knew how to tell them.
“Prepare yourself somebody is engaged!” she said, in a solemn
tone, that made Polly put up her hand as if to ward off an expected
blow. “No, don’t look like that, my poor dear; it is n’t Tom, it ‘s I!”
Of course there was a rapture, followed by one of the deliciously
confidential talks which bosom friends enjoy, interspersed with
tears and kisses, smiles and sighs.
“Oh, Polly, though I ‘ve waited and hoped so long I could n’t
believe it when it came, and don’t deserve it; but I will! for the
knowledge that he loves me seems to make everything possible,”
said Fanny, with an expression which made her really beautiful,
for the first time in her life.
“You happy girl!” sighed Polly, then smiled and added, “I think
you deserve all that ‘s come to you, for you have truly tried to be
worthy of it, and whether it ever came or not that would have been
a thing to be proud of.”
“He says that is what made him love me,” answered Fanny, never
calling her lover by his name, but making the little personal
pronoun a very sweet word by the tone in which she uttered it. “He
was disappointed in me last year, he told me, but you said good
things about me and though he did n’t care much then, yet when he
lost you, and came back to me, he found that you were not
altogether mistaken, and he has watched me all this winter,
learning to respect and love me better every day. Oh, Polly, when
he said that, I could n’t bear it, because in spite of all my trying, I