“But, Polly,” objected Margery, “you know you never could tie a bow, or even put a ribbon on your sailor hat.”

“But I could learn.  Do you suppose all the milliners were called to their work by a consciousness of genius?  Perish the thought!  If that were true, there wouldn’t be so many hideous hats in the shop windows.  However, I don’t pine for millinery; it’s always a struggle for me to wear a hat myself.”

“You ’ve done beautifully the last year or two, dear, and you ’ve reaped the reward of virtue, for you ’ve scarcely a freckle left.”

“Oh, that isn’t hats,” rejoined Polly, “that’s the law of compensation.  When I was younger, and did n’t take the boarders so much to heart, I had freckles given to me for a cross; but the moment I grew old enough to see the boarders in their true light and note their effect on mamma, the freckles disappeared.  Now, here ’s an idea.  I might make a complexion lotion for a living.  Let me see what I ’ve been advised by elderly ladies to use in past years:  ammonia, lemon-juice, cucumbers, morning dew, milk, pork rinds, kerosene, and a few other household remedies.  Of course I ’m not sure which did the work, but why could n’t I mix them all in equal parts,—­if they would mix, you know, and let those stay out that would n’t,—­and call it the ’Olivera Complexion Lotion’?  The trade-mark might be a cucumber, a lemon, and a morning dew-drop, rampant, and a frightened little brown spot couchant.  Then on the neat label pasted on the bottles above the trade-mark there might be a picture of a spotted girl,—­that’s Miss Oliver before using her lotion,—­and a copy of my last photograph,—­that’s Miss Oliver radiant in beauty after using her lotion.”

Margery laughed, as she generally did at Polly’s nonsense.

“That sounds very attractive, but if you are anxious for an elegant and dignified occupation which shall restore your mother to her ancestral position, it certainly has its defects.”

“I know everything has its defects, everything except one, and I won’t believe that has a single weak point.”

“Oh, Polly, you deceiver!  You have a secret leaning toward some particular thing, after all!”

“Yes; though I have n’t talked it over fully yet, even with mamma, lest she should think it one of my wild schemes; but, Margery, I want with all my heart to be a kindergartner like Miss Mary Denison.  There would be no sting to me in earning my living, if only I could do it by working among poor, ragged, little children, as she does.  I run in and stay half an hour with her whenever I can, and help the babies with their sewing or weaving, and I always study and work better myself afterward,—­I don’t know whether it’s the children, or Miss Denison, or the place, or all three.  And the other day, when I was excused from my examinations, I stayed the whole morning in the kindergarten.  When it was time for the games, and they were all