“Yes, they would!  Wouldn’t they, Miss Nita?”

“I can’t swear to it, as Polly does; but this I do know—­it plumps and pinks them for a little while.  Polly says her aunt told her that after enough practice the plumpness would stay.”

“Oh, what is it?” queried Miss Mullaly eagerly.

“I’ll try it on Miss Leatherland if she’ll let me,” offered Polly.  “It will be more of a test on her, because she is thinnest.”

“Certainly you may, but I can’t quite believe it will do what you say it will.”

“Just you wait’” chuckled Polly.  “First you must smile, a big, big smile!  Not quite hard enough!—­Yes, that’s better!  Now, while I press my hands against your cheeks and massage them this way, you must open and shut your mouth—­no, wider than that!—­a little wider—­just as wide as you can!  Keep on smiling all the time!

“There! now I’ll let you look in the glass—­see how your cheeks have plumped out!  Oh, but you lock pretty!”

“Doesn’t she!” Miss Crilly jumped up, the better to see.  “Look! everybody!  My, how pretty!”

“‘Pretty!’” scorned Miss Leatherland.  Yet the pink rose higher.

“Polly! is this the right way?” Miss Mullaly was doing her best, but not well enough to satisfy the instructor.

“The middle of your hand must come up high on your cheek,” explained Polly.  “Yes, that’s it!  And twenty-five times you must open and shut your mouth.”

“Polly,” broke in Miss Sterling, “when you can, I wish you’d tell Mrs. Prindle how to make her hair grow.”

“Yes,” added Mrs. Prindle, “she says you know a way of massaging the scalp, and my hair is so thin!”

“You’ll have to take it down, I guess—­so you can get at it all over,” said Polly.

“Do you know it will really help it?”

“Grandaunt Susie said her hair was so thin you could see through it, and when she was at our house it was as thick as—­as thick as mine.”

“Oh, I’m going to try that—­my hair’s all coming out!” Miss Lily drew her pins from the thin coil.

Mrs. Grace and Mrs. Adlerfeld made their heads ready for manipulation.

“You just put your hands this way, right up under your hair,”—­Polly spread out her fingers,—­“and clutch at the scalp hard, as if you were going to pull it off.  Go all over the head, again and again for five minutes—­two or three times a day.  Aunt Susie says it will make the hair grow like fun.”

“Oh, Miss Polly, will you be so kind as to show me just how it goes, please?” Miss Twining was shaking down her scanty locks.

“It’s very easy,” Polly smiled.  She liked the shy, gentle Miss Twining.  “This is all there is to it,” working her hands under the soft blond hair.  “The only trouble is, it tires the hands out pretty quick.”

“Oh, yours must be tired!  I should not have asked you!”

“No, no!  Mine are all right.  I was thinking only of yours.  Now, try it yourself.  Yes, that’s the way!  You have it!”