Ever your affectionate POLLYKINS.

The foregoing extracts from Polly’s business letters give you an idea only of her financial difficulties.  She was tempted to pour these into one sympathizing ear, inasmuch as she kept all annoyances from her mother as far as possible; though household economies, as devised by her, lost much of their terror.

Mrs. Oliver was never able to see any great sorrow in a monthly deficit when Polly seated herself before her cash-boxes and explained her highly original financial operations.  One would be indeed in dire distress of mind could one refrain from smiling when, having made the preliminary announcement,—­“The great feminine financier of the century is in her counting-room:  let the earth tremble!”—­she planted herself on the bed, oriental fashion, took pencil and account-book in lap, spread cigar-box, sugar-bowl, and ginger-jar before her on the pillows, and ruffled her hair for the approaching contest.

CHAPTER VI.

POLLY TRIES A LITTLE MISSIONARY WORK.

One change had come over their life during these months which, although not explained in Polly’s correspondence, concerns our little circle of people very intimately.

The Olivers had been in San Francisco over a month, but though Edgar Noble had been advised of the fact, he had not come over from Berkeley to see his old friends.  Polly had at length written him a note, which still remained unanswered when she started one afternoon on a trip across the bay for her first Spanish conversation with Professor Salazar.  She had once visited the university buildings, but Professor Salazar lived not only at some distance from the college, but at some distance from everything else.  Still, she had elaborate written directions in her pocket, and hoped to find the place without difficulty.

She had no sooner alighted at the station than she felt an uneasy consciousness that it was not the right one, and that she should have gone farther before leaving the railway.  However, there was no certainty about it in her mind, so after asking at two houses half a mile apart, and finding that the inmates had never heard of Professor Salazar’s existence, she walked down a shady road, hoping to find another household where his name and fame had penetrated.

The appointed hour for the lessons was half past three on Fridays, but it was after four, and Polly seemed to be walking farther and farther away from civilization.

“I shall have to give it up,” she thought; “I will go back to the station where I got off and wait until the next train for San Francisco comes along, which will be nobody knows when.  How provoking it is, and how stupid I am!  Professor Salazar will stay at home for me, and very likely Mrs. Salazar has made butter-cakes and coffee, and here am I floundering in the woods!  I ’ll sit down under these trees and do a bit of Spanish, while I ’m resting for the walk back.”