Part 74

"We were going to have a little play," observed Polly, a bit sorrowfully, "but it was thought best not, so it will be recitations and music."

"Those will be very nice, I am quite sure, Polly," said Mrs. Sterling; "how I should love to hear some of them!" It was her turn to look sad now.

"Why--" Polly sat up quite straight now, and her cheeks turned rosy.

"What is it, my child?" asked Mrs. Sterling.

"Would you--I mean, do you want--oh, Mrs. Sterling, would you like us to come here some time to recite something to you?"

Mrs. Sterling turned an eager face on her pillow.

"Are you sure, Polly," a light coming into her tired eyes, "that you young people would be willing to come to entertain a dull, sick, old woman?"

"Oh, I am sure they would," cried Polly, "if you would like it, dear Mrs. Sterling."

"Like it!" Mrs. Sterling turned her thin face to the wall for a moment. When she looked again at Polly, there were tears trickling down the wasted cheeks. "Polly, you don't know," she said brokenly, "how I just long to hear young voices here in this dreary old house. To lie here day after day, child--"

"Oh!" cried Polly suddenly, "it must be so very dreadful, Mrs. Sterling."

"Well, don't let us speak of that," said Mrs. Sterling, breaking off quickly her train of thought, "for the worst isn't the pain and the weakness, Polly. It's the loneliness, child."

"Oh!" said Polly. Then it all rushed over her how she might have run in before, and taken the other girls if she had only known. "But we will come now, dear Mrs. Sterling," she said aloud.

"Do," cried Mrs. Sterling, and a faint color began to show itself on her thin face, "but not unless you are quite sure that the young people will like it, Polly."

"Yes, I am sure," said Polly, with a decided nod of her brown head.

"Then why couldn't you hold some of your rehearsals here?" proposed Mrs. Sterling.

"Shouldn't we tire you?" asked Polly.

"No, indeed!" declared Mrs. Sterling, with sudden energy, "I could bear a menagerie up here, Polly," and she laughed outright.

Gibbons, at this unwonted sound, popped her head in from the adjoining room where she was busy with her sewing, to gaze in astonishment at her mistress.

"I am not surprised at your face, Gibbons," said Mrs. Sterling cheerily, "for you have not heard me laugh for many a day."

"No, madam, I haven't," said Gibbons, "but I can't help saying I'm rejoiced to hear it now," with a glance of approval on Polly Pepper.

"So, Polly, you see there is no danger of your bringing me any fatigue, and I should be only too happy to see you at your next rehearsal."

"We can come, I am almost sure," said Polly, "those of us who want to rehearse at all. Some of us, you see, are quite sure of our pieces: Pickering Dodge is, for one; he spoke at his last school exhibition. But I'll tell the others. Oh, thank you for asking us, Mrs. Sterling."

"Thank you for giving your time, dear, to a dull old woman," said Mrs. Sterling. "Oh, must you go?" She clung to her hand. "I suppose you ought, child."

"Yes," said Polly, "I really ought to go, Mrs. Sterling. And you are not dull, one single bit, and I like you very much," she added as simply as Phronsie would have said it.

"Kiss me good-bye, Polly," said Mrs. Sterling. So Polly laid her fresh young cheek against the poor, tired, wasted one; hopped into her jacket, and was off on happy feet.

And the others said "Yes," when they saw Polly's enthusiasm over the plan of holding a rehearsal at Mrs. Sterling's; and Jasper proposed, "Why couldn't we repeat the whole thing after our grand performance, for her sometime?" and, before any one could quite tell how, a warm sympathy had been set in motion for the rich, lonely old lady in the big, gloomy stone mansion most of them passed daily on their way to school.

Well, the grand affair was over now, and a greater success than was ever hoped for. Now came the enjoyment of presenting the money!

"Grandpapa," said Polly, "we are all here."