“And you would sing?” asked Polly, eagerly.
“Um-m--’twould be according to whether I could depend on my voice. I could try it with the scales, I expect, late in the afternoon,” said Arctura, “and then we could give the entertainment right after supper, soon as the dishes were cleared up. Goodness me! look at that clock! It’s most half-past ten!” and then there was a busy time in the kitchen until the noon hour brought dinner and rest.
After her resting hour on the bed Polly took her book again from the low shelf and read another ten pages. Before Miss Pomeroy went to her room after dinner, Polly asked for a pencil and paper, and Miss Hetty gave her a pad of smooth paper in a pretty linen cover, to which a sharp pencil was attached by a long red ribbon.
“Another present!” the little girl exclaimed when Miss Pomeroy told her she was to keep the pad “for her very own.”
“Another present,” said the mistress of the house, smiling down into the brown eyes, and she kissed Polly as she stood at the foot of the stairs.
Polly’s head felt warm and tired, and she longed to run out into the woods with her book, but with the thought of Eleanor in her mind, she set her lips firmly and took her seat on the south porch, and began her self-appointed task. Polly would have been spared a good deal of trouble if she could have overheard what Miss Pomeroy was saying to Arctura, while the little girl sat so quietly reading and copying words from the leather-covered book to the paper in her lap.
“I don’t know just what to make of little Mary,” said Miss Pomeroy, looking rather disturbed. “She is so busy reading and writing that she didn’t hear me come downstairs, and she is reading a book by Ruskin which is suitable for grown people, and I don’t see how she can possibly understand it, or enjoy it. Yet there she sits, copying a few words ‘to look up in the dictionary,’ she told me. Do you suppose most little girls of ten nowadays would do that? Of course, you and I haven’t had anything to do with children for a long time,” said Miss Pomeroy gravely. “I might ride over to Maple Hill and ask Mrs. Manser if Mary had been used to books, but I dislike the woman, and I should not prefer to do it.”
“I wouldn’t bother,” said Arctura, easily. “Probably she’s kind of forward for her age, but I guess we can liven her up by degrees. She’s real fond of a good time, provided it’s quiet now. You see she eats a good deal and she don’t exercise much, and take that with her nap every afternoon and reading so long, I expect she feels sort of dull some of the time. She’s a good deal livelier at her work than I am,” said Miss Green, handsomely, “and she’s a sweet little thing if ever there was one in this world. I’m getting fond of her right along. Come Monday, how would it be if I should speak of her going out to play awhile in the afternoon? She could take her book along to the woods. I can tell her of a place. We’ve got to make a start with her sometime.”