you?  Give me something to do,—­something hard!  Lean just a little, Polly, and see how stiff I ’ll be,—­no, bother it, I won’t be stiff, I’ll be firm!  To tell the truth, I can never imagine you as ‘leaning;’ though they say you are pale and sad, and out of sorts with life.  You remind me of one of the gay scarlet runners that climb up the slender poles in the garden below my window.  The pole holds up the vine at first, of course, but the vine keeps the pole straight; not in any ugly and commonplace fashion, but by winding round, and round about it, and hanging its blossoms in and out and here and there, till the poor, serviceable pole is forgotten in the beauty that makes use of it.

“Good-by, little scarlet runner!  You will bloom again some day, when the storm that has beaten you down has passed over and the sky is clear and the sun warm.  Don’t laugh at me, Polly!

“Always yours, whether you laugh or not,

        “EDGAR.”

“P.  S. No.  III.  I should n’t dare add this third postscript if you were near enough to slay me with the lightning of your eye, but I simply wish to mention that a wise gardener chooses young, strong timber for poles,—­saplings, in fact! Mr. John Bird is too old for this purpose.  Well seasoned he is, of course, and suitable as a prop for a century-plant, but not for a scarlet runner!  I like him, you know, but I ’m sure he ’d crack if you leaned on him; in point of fact, he ’s a little cracked now!  E. N.”

The ghost of a smile shone on Polly’s April face as she folded Edgar’s letter and laid it in its envelope; first came a smile, then a tear, then a dimple, then a sob, then a wave of bright color.

“Edgar is growing up so fast,” she thought, “I shall soon be afraid to scold him or advise him, and

  “‘What will poor Robin do then, poor thing?’

“Upon my word, if I caught him misbehaving nowadays, I believe I should hesitate to remonstrate with him.  He will soon be capable of remonstrating with me, at this rate.  He is a goose,—­oh, there ’s no shadow of doubt as to that, but he ’s an awfully nice goose.”

Mrs. Bird’s letter ran thus:—­

“MY DEAREST POLLYKINS:——­We have lived without you just about as long as we can endure it.  The boys have returned to school and college.  Mr. Bird contemplates one more trip to Honolulu, and brother John and I need some one to coddle and worry over.  I have not spoken to you of your future, because I wished to wait until you opened the subject.  It is too late for you to begin your professional training this year, and I think you are far too delicate just now to undertake so arduous a work; however, you are young, and that can wait for a bit.  As to the story-telling in the hospitals and asylums, I wish you could find courage and strength to go on with that, not for your own sake alone, but for the sake of others.