Polly took a note from her pocket and handed it to Mrs. Noble:  “Mrs. Oliver presents her compliments to Mrs. Noble, and says in this letter that we accept with pleasure Mrs. Noble’s kind invitation to visit her.  Said letter was not to be delivered, in case Mrs. Noble omitted to renew the invitation; but as all is right, I don’t mind announcing that we are coming the day after to-morrow.”

“Oh, Polly, Polly!  How am I ever to live without you!” sighed Margery.  “First Elsie, then Bell, now you!”

“Live for your Art with a big A, Peggy, but it’s not forever.  By and by, when you are a successful artist and I am a successful something, in short, when we are both ‘careering,’ which is my verb to express earning one’s living by the exercise of some splendid talent, we will ‘career’ together in some great metropolis.  Our mothers shall dress in Lyons velvet and point-lace.  Their delicate fingers, no longer sullied by the vulgar dishcloth and duster, shall glitter with priceless gems, while you and I, the humble authors of their greatness, will heap dimes on dimes until we satisfy ambition.”

Mrs. Noble smiled.  “I hope your ‘career,’ as you call it, will be one in which imagination will be of use, Polly.”

“I don’t really imagine all the imaginations you imagine I imagine,” said Polly soberly, as she gave Mrs. Noble’s hand an affectionate squeeze.  “A good deal of it is ‘whistling to keep my courage up.’  But everything looks hopeful just now.  Mamma is so much better, everybody is so kind, and do you know, I don’t loathe the boarders half so much since we have rented them with the house?

  “They grow in beauty side by side,
  They fill our home with glee.

“Now that I can look upon them as personal property, part of our goods and chattels, they have ceased to be disagreeable.  Even Mr. Greenwood—­you remember him, Margery?”

“The fat old man who calls you sprightly?”

“The very same; but he has done worse since that.  To be called sprightly is bad enough, but yesterday he said that he shouldn’t be surprised if I married well—­in—­course—­of—­time!”

Nothing but italics would convey the biting sarcasm of Polly’s inflections, and no capitals in a printer’s case could picture her flashing eyes, or the vigor with which she prodded the earth with her riding-whip.

“I agree with him, that it is not impossible,” said Mrs. Noble teasingly, after a moment of silence.

“Now, dearest aunty Meg, don’t take sides with that odious man!  If, in the distant years, you ever see me on the point of marrying well, simply mention Mr. Greenwood’s name to me, and I ’ll draw back even if I am walking up the middle aisle with an ivory prayer-book in my hand!”

“Just to spite Mr. Greenwood; that would be sensible,” said Margery.

“You could n’t be so calm if you had to sit at the same table with him day after day.  He belongs at the second table by—­by every law of his nature!  But, as I was saying, now that we have rented him to Mrs. Chadwick with the rest of the furniture, and will have a percentage on him just as we do on the piano which is far more valuable, I have been able to look at him pleasantly.”