But there was a shadow on the lad's high spirits as he thought of gay, courageous, daring Polly, stripped in a moment of all that made life dear.
"I wish we could do something for her, poor little soul," he said to his mother in one of their long talks in the orange-tree sitting-room.
"Tongue cannot tell what Mrs.Oliver has been to me, and I 'm not a bit ashamed to own up to Polly's influence, even if she is a girl and two or three years younger than I am.

Hang it! I 'd like to see the fellow that could live under the same roof as those two women, and not do the best that was in him! Has n't Polly some relatives in the East ?" "No near ones, and none that she has ever seen.

Still, she is not absolutely alone, as many girls would be under like circumstances.

We would be only too glad to have her here; the Howards have telegraphed asking her to spend the winter with them in Cambridge; I am confident Dr.Winship will do the same when the news of Mrs.Oliver's death reaches Europe; and Mrs.Bird seems to have constituted herself a sort of fairy Godmother in chief.

You see everybody loves Polly; and she will probably have no less than four homes open to her.