of the place. It’s where Patricia’s father’s got a mine. And she hasn’t ever been to school much, only studied with her mother, and rode horseback, and all that. Aunt Julia said she was coming to our school, and I think she’s lovely; don’t you?”

“Sweet as she can be!” agreed Polly.

“I know why Ilga pounced on her so quick,” confided Betty. “I’ll bet she heard me telling Lilith and some of the other girls that she was rich, and that’s just why. We were down in the dressing-room before school. If it hadn’t been for her we could have got acquainted this morning.”

“Well, there are more days coming,” laughed Polly philosophically. “That’s what mother always tells me, when I want to do a thing right then, and can’t.”

The talk passed to other matters, yet the eyes of both girls followed the new pupil as she and her companion strolled from room to room of the little suite. Here and there they would pause for a few words with some of Ilga’s friends, or to look from a window, and then move on again. The Senator’s daughter was assuredly doing the honors for the entire school.

Polly and Betty laid plans for “the next time,” but Polly kept her secret hope close hidden in her heart, not disclosing it even to David on the way home.

Neither did she let it be known to father or mother.

“Prob’ly Patricia isn’t related to me at all,” she argued to herself. “It is silly to think anything about it.”

Yet the subject was still present in her thoughts at the beginning of the afternoon session, and she wondered when the opportunity that she longed for would appear. It came soon, and not at all according to her conjectures.

School was dismissed in order of deportment marks, those who stood highest for the day passing out ahead. Among this small number was Polly. When she reached the street door she was dismayed to see that it was raining, and she stood hesitant on the sill, having neither raincoat, overshoes, nor umbrella. Indifferently she noticed a limousine waiting at the curb, and wondered for whom it had been sent.

“I think you go my way,” spoke a clear voice behind her. “May I take you home?”

Polly turned quickly, to look into the gray eyes of Patricia Illingworth.

“Oh, thank you!” was the smiling response. “I didn’t know it was raining until just this minute.”

Before she had time for more, the other had caught her arm, and she was being escorted to the street under Mrs. Illingworth’s green silk umbrella. Then she was seated beside Patricia, and they were gliding along the road. Even in her delighted surprise the thought that all day had been uppermost pushed itself to her lips. But it was Patricia that spoke first.

“I have been wanting to know you ever since I first spied you this morning,” she beamed. “I was in the front door when you were going in at the side. I knew we’d be friends right away.”

Polly looked her pleasure.

“And I’ve been longing to get acquainted with you,” she confessed. “It was partly on account of your name. That was mamma’s name too,—she was Phebe Illingworth.”

“Why, isn’t that fine!” exclaimed Patricia. “I’m going straight to look in papa’s Genealogy, just as soon as I get home, and see if we’re related! Wouldn’t it be grand if we are?”

She squeezed Polly rapturously.

Then the car stopped at Dr. Dudley’s door.

“My grandfather’s name was Rufus Illingworth,” added Polly to her thanks. “Oh, I do hope we are cousins!” she smiled. “I’ve been wishing and wishing for ever so long that I had a cousin, and it will be lovelicious if you should turn out to be one.”

With earnest good-byes the new friends separated, and from the shelter of the piazza Polly answered the salute of the little hand at the limousine window as long as she could see it.

There was no holding back this time. The story of the day, or the portion of it occupied by Patricia Illingworth, was related in detail, both in Mrs. Dudley’s room before tea and at the table afterwards, as the Doctor was kept busy at the hospital until six o’clock.

They were through with the meal, and Polly was helping her mother carry the dishes into the kitchen, when the telephone called the physician from the room. In a moment he was back.

“Your new friend is holding the wire for you,” he told Polly. And she ran, her heart happy and fearful all at once.

“That you, Polly? Oh, say, we are cousins—third cousins! Isn’t that great?”

“Beautiful!” responded Polly.

“We had the longest time finding the book! I was afraid we’d left it in Nevada, and mamma was too; but it was ’way down in the bottom of a trunk. Do say you’re glad, and say it good and strong, so I’ll know you mean it! I couldn’t wait till to-morrow! I hope I haven’t bothered your father.”

Polly’s reply seemed fully to satisfy the other end of the line, and, with a good-night and a promise to be early at school the next morning, she hung up the receiver.