story, and ask your advice about Polly. Then I thought you'd see plain enough what I was hoping, and I ain't any hand to beat around the bush, anyway; I like straight cuts best. Polly—'s you call her—sets more by you than by any one on this earth, not excepting me and her father. You took her here that time when she was pindling away out of the world, and I guess there ain't much doubt you saved her life. Would you see your way to taking her now for a spell? I hate to ask a favour, but I don't know which way to turn."

"We should have offered to take the child if you hadn't asked, Mrs. Flinders," said Mrs. Grey quickly. "Polly isn't any more trouble than the little mouse in the wall that Kiku can never catch, because it keeps in its hole there. Of course we will take little Polly, and keep her safe as long as you want to leave her with us. We are only too glad to get her back. Polly heard the last word my dear husband spoke, and Polly sang him into his long sleep while she was singing to her dolly."

Mrs. Grey spoke very softly, and Rob's face dropped on Polly's smooth head.

Polly's care-worn mother, worn into hardness and unloveliness, broke down at this. "Oh, Lord," she said, not as an exclamation, but prayerfully, "this life is queer. Sylvester Grey took just when he was ready to live, and that poor, mean-souled, grasping man of mine throwing away the work of his whole hard life, and then struck down helpless on top of it! Well, I'm more obliged to you for your taking Maimie, and for the way you do it than I can say. I won't let her stay any longer'n I can help, but I've told you the whole story, and you can see just what my prospects are. We've got to sell our farm—'tain't valuble, but it'll bring something, if only some one wants it, and after that I've got to support him and me and Maimie, till she's old enough to do for herself."

Mrs. Flinders had risen as she spoke and the Greys arose too.

"I have told you truly that Polly is welcome for just as long a time as you care to trust her to us—weeks, months, or years. She is a dear, quiet, gentle child, and we have plenty of room to shelter her and plenty of bread and butter to nourish her till life has something better to offer her than we can give her. And you know, Mrs. Flinders, that my girls and I will give the child the same care, in body, mind, and soul that Wythie, Rob, and Prue received. You need not fear that she will not be lovingly cared for, nor feel any anxiety about her. I will do my best."

The two mothers looked into each others' eyes; one was seamed, thin, work-hardened, work-worn, the other was beautiful, calm, clear-eyed, wearing in the brave smile that illumined her face the look of one that has conquered.

Mrs. Flinders put out her hard hand without a word. Then she shook hands with Miss Charlotte, Wythie, and Rob, and took Polly's little hand to lead her away.

"I'll send her up this afternoon," she said as she walked rigidly out of the door, speaking without turning her head. "As to the rest, whatever this blow is to us, Maimie's in luck."

"Isn't that tragic?" exclaimed Rob as soon as the outside door was safely shut.

"Have you taken Polly Flinders, mama?" cried Prue, coming swiftly down the stairs. "Good-morning, Cousin Peace. Oh, dear; don't you dread having Polly?"

"Not any more than I dread the sparrows around the door, hopping about for my crumbs, nor the dozen or so of cats who come daily for our larger crumbs," replied her mother stoutly. "I love to feel that the little grey house diffuses brighter colours on darkened lives. Polly really is as quiet as the little mouse I compared her to, and it isn't a great risk to take a child who lacks so much in her own home, is it Charlotte? Polly can't lose in coming to us, having very little to lose."

"That is not overstated, Mary," said Cousin Peace quietly, and even Prue reluctantly laughed.

"Well," sighed Wythie, who had not spoken for a long time, rising as she spoke. "Well, I feel dazed. That is such a sad story that we have just heard, made sadder by the barrenness of its manner of telling! And then we have acquired a child, indefinitely, and lost a farmer most definitely. And I meant to have made a pudding for dinner, and it is altogether too late. I feel dazed. I wonder if this is to be an era of happenings? I have noticed events move in schools, like mackerel."

"I really hope, Wythie, that children aren't going to move upon us in schools, like mackerel," cried Rob, recovering her brightness of face and manner. "For our income is distinctly limited. I should have to resume my story-telling."

This was a mild family joke; Rob's story-telling always loomed in the near distance as a possibility when the warm Grey hearts led them to generosities of which their purse was not capable.

The puddingless dinner was despatched with some haste, because Wythie and Rob had cake to make to be ready for Battalion B's keen appetite, made keener by abstinence from the little grey house's cake, and Rob had to go to the rescue of Aunt Azraella's Tobias. There were preparations to be made for the coming of Polly, which had to be compromised for the immediate present by a bed in the corner of Prue's room, for the afternoon was speeding away; it was almost time for the arrival of the boys, while Polly must be quite due.

Mrs. Flinders, herself, did not bring the child. A neighbour drove her up in the dilapidated buggy in which she had arrived to make her first visit to the Greys. It did not look much more purplish and worn, nor Polly much older for the time that had passed since then, though the buggy had been in constant use, and the child had attained the great age of nine.

Miss Charlotte lingered to welcome the boys, between whom and the sweet blind woman there was the strongest affection. Polly had hardly been established before three long shadows came wavering up the eastward mounting hill of the main street, and Basil, Bruce, and Bartlemy strode over the little front gate without stopping for the ceremony of opening it, in quite their old way, and burst into the little grey house, filling it from roof to cellar with their hearty voices shouting: