Polly’s manner changed abruptly as she glanced in at her mother’s empty chair before she replied.

“Courage!  Sometimes I think I have n’t a morsel.  I am a gilded sham.  My knees tremble whenever I think of my future ‘career,’ as I call it.  Mamma thinks me filled with a burning desire for a wider sphere of action, and so I am, but chiefly for her sake.  Courage!  There ’s nothing like having a blessed, tired little mother to take care of,—­a mother whom you want to snatch from the jaws of a horrible fate.  That ’s a trifle strong, but it’s dramatic!  You see, Margery, a woman like my mother is not going to remain forever in her present rank in her profession,—­she is too superior; she is bound to rise.  Now, what would become of her if she rose?  Why, first, she would keep a country hotel, and sit on the front piazza in a red rocker, and chat with the commercial travelers; and then she would become the head of a summer resort, with a billiard-room and a bowling-alley.  I must be self-supporting, and ‘I will never desert Mr. Micawber,’ so I should make beds and dust in Hotel Number One, and in Hotel Number Two entertain the guests with my music and my ’sprightly manners,’—­that’s what Mr. Greenwood calls them, and the only reason I am sorry we live in a republic is that I can’t have him guillotined for doing it, but must swallow my wrath because he pays twenty dollars a week and seldom dines at home.  Finally, in Hotel Number Three I should probably marry the ninepin-man or the head clerk, so as to consolidate the management and save salaries, and there would end the annals of the Olivers!  No, Margery!” cried Polly, waving the scissors in the air, “everybody is down on the beach, and I can make the welkin ring if I like, so hear me:  The boarders must go!  How, when, and where they shall go are three problems I have n’t yet solved; and what I shall find to take the place of them when they do go is a fourth problem, and the knottiest one of all!”

CHAPTER III.

THE DOCTOR GIVES POLLY A PRESCRIPTION.

As the summer wore away, Mrs. Oliver daily grew more and more languid, until at length she was forced to ask a widowed neighbor, Mrs. Chadwick, to come and take the housekeeping cares until she should feel stronger.  But beef-tea and drives, salt-water bathing and tonics, seemed to do no good, and at length there came a day when she had not sufficient strength to sit up.

The sight of her mother actually in bed in the daytime gave Polly a sensation as of a cold hand clutching at her heart, and she ran for Dr. Edgerton in an agony of fear.  But good “Dr. George” (as he was always called, because he began practice when his father, the old doctor, was still living) came home with her, cheered her by his hopeful view of the case, and asked her to call at his office that afternoon for some remedies.

After dinner was over, Polly kissed her sleeping mother, laid a rose on her pillow for good-by, and stole out of the room.