“A cherry pudding may!” cried the irrepressible Elsie.  “Oh, Miss Lucy, I won’t whine or cry, no matter how bad you hurt my hip when you dress it—­not the teentiest bit!  See if I do!”

“Will Polly make up our stories for us?” queried Leonora Hewitt.

“Why, Miss Lucy has made one for all of us,” laughed Polly.  “We are to be brave and patient and not make a fuss about anything, and help everybody else to be happy—­is n’t that what you meant, Miss Lucy?”

“Oh,” replied the little lame girl, “guess that’ll be a hard kind!”

“Beautiful stories are not often easy to live,” smiled the young nurse; “but let’s see which of us can live the best one.”

“Polly will!” cried Maggie O’Donnell and Otto Kriloff together.

Chapter II

The Election of Polly

The convalescent ward was finishing its noonday feast when Miss Hortensia Price appeared.  Miss Hortensia Price was straight and tall, with somber black eyes and thin, serious lips.  Many of the children were greatly in awe of the dignified nurse; but Elsie Meyer was bold enough to announce:—­

“We’re livin’ a cherry-pudding story!” And she beamed up from her ruby-colored plate.

“What?” scowled the visitor.

The tone was puzzled rather tan harsh, yet Elsie shrank back in sudden abashment.

“Polly told us a story yesterday,” explained Miss Lucy, the pink deepening on her delicate cheeks, “and it made the children want some cherry pudding for dinner.  It is not rich,” she added apologetically.

The elder nurse responded only with a courteous “Oh!” and then remarked, “What I came down to say is this:  I shall send you three cases from my ward at half-past two o’clock this afternoon.”

“All right,” was the cordial answer.  “We shall be glad to welcome them to our little family.”

“High Price is awful solemn to-day,” whispered Maggie O’Donnell to Ethel Jones, as the door shut.

“High Price?” repeated Ethel, in a perplexed voice.

“Sh!” breathed the other.  “She’s ‘High Price,’ and Miss Lucy’s ‘Low Price,’ ’cause she’s so high and mighty and tall and everything, and Miss Lucy’s kind o’ short and little and so darling, and they ain’t any relation either.  I’m glad they ain’t,” she added decidedly.  “I would n’t have Miss Lucy related to her for anything!”

“Oh, no!” returned Ethel, comprehendingly, as she scraped her plate for a last morsel of pudding.

The three “cases,” which appeared in the convalescent ward promptly at the hour named, proved to be two girls and a boy,—­ Brida MacCarthy, Isabel Smith, and Moses Cohn.  Polly did her share in routing the evident fears of the small strangers, their wide, anxious eye showing that they dreaded what might lie ahead of them in these unknown quarters.

The wonderful giant story, which ended merrily,—­as all of Polly’s stories did end,—­made Moses her valiant follower as long as he remained in the ward; the tender little slumber song, which Polly’s mother had taught her, put the tiny Isabel to sleep; and the verses about the “Kit-Cat Luncheon” completely won the heart of Irish Brida.