So Polly assisted in keeping the wolf from the door, and her sacrifices watered her young heart and kept it tender.  “Money may always be a beautiful thing.  It is we who make it grimy.”

Edgar shared in the business conferences now.  He had gone into convulsions of mirth over Polly’s system of accounts, and insisted, much against her will, in teaching her book-keeping, striving to convince her that the cash could be kept in a single box, and the accounts separated in a book.

These lessons were merry occasions, for there was a conspicuous cavity in Polly’s brain where the faculty for mathematics should have been.

“Your imbecility is so unusual that it ’s a positive inspiration,” Edgar would say.  “It is n’t like any ordinary stupidity; there does n’t seem to be any bottom to it, you know; it ’s abnormal, it ’s fascinating, Polly!”

Polly glowed under this unstinted praise.  “I am glad you like it,” she said.  “I always like to have a thing first-class of its kind, though I can’t pride myself that it compares with your Spanish accent, Edgar; that stands absolutely alone and unapproachable for badness.  I don’t worry about my mathematical stupidity a bit since I read Dr. Holmes, who says that everybody has an idiotic area in his mind.”

There had been very little bookkeeping to-night.  It was raining in torrents.  Mrs. Oliver was talking with General M——­ in the parlor, while Edgar and Polly were studying in the dining-room.

Polly laid down her book and leaned back in her chair.  It had been a hard day, and it was very discouraging that a new year should come to one’s door laden with vexations and anxieties, when everybody naturally expected new years to be happy, through January and February at least.

“Edgar,” she sighed plaintively, “I find that this is a very difficult world to live in, sometimes.”

Edgar looked up from his book, and glanced at her as she lay back with closed eyes in the Chinese lounging-chair.  She was so pale, so tired, and so very, very pretty just then, her hair falling in bright confusion round her face, her whole figure relaxed with weariness, and her lips quivering a little, as if she would like to cry if she dared.

Polly with dimples playing hide and seek in rosy cheeks, with dazzling eyes, and laughing lips, and saucy tongue, was sufficiently captivating; but Polly with bright drops on her lashes, with a pathetic droop in the corners of her mouth and the suspicion of a tear in her voice,—­this Polly was irresistible.

“What’s the matter, pretty Poll?”

“Nothing specially new.  The Baer cubs were naughty as little demons to-day.  One of them had a birthday-party yesterday, with four kinds of frosted cake.  Mrs. Baer’s system of management is n’t like mine, and until I convince the children I mean what I say, they give me the benefit of the doubt.  The Baer place is so large that Mrs. Baer never knows where disobedience may occur, and that she may be prepared she keeps one of Mr. Baer’s old slippers on the front porch, one in the carriage-house, one in the arbor, one in the nursery, and one under the rose hedge at the front gate.  She showed me all these haunts, and told me to make myself thoroughly at home.  I felt tempted to-day, but I resisted.”