The little lady shook her head, and then changed the subject.

“How is David Collins getting on?”

“He is ever so much better,” answered Polly; “and is n’t it too bad?  He’s almost strong enough to come down into our ward, and there is n’t any room for him!  I’ve had to go and sleep in Miss Lucy’s bed, so they could use my cot.”

“Is the hospital so full as that?” scowled Mrs. Jocelyn.  “Dear me, how many sick people there are!”

“There are three or four waiting now to come down, ahead of David,” Poly went on.  “I don’t know what we shall do if he can’t come at all!  We’ve planned so many things.  He said he’d tell part of the bedtime stories—­oh, it was going to be lovely!”

“Perhaps there’ll be a place for him pretty soon,” the little lady responded.  “Dr. Dudley says that you are a story-teller, too.”

“Oh, yes!  Some days the children keep me telling them all day long.”

“Suppose you tell me one,” invited the little lady.

“Well,” returned Polly, a bit doubtfully, and then stopped to think over her list.  “The Cherry-Pudding Story,” which usually insisted on being uppermost, would scarcely do this time, she thought.  It seemed to rollicking for this big, hushed room, with only one sober-eyed listener.  She hastily decided that none of the cat stories were suitable, or fairy tales—­“Oh!” she suddenly dimpled, “I wonder if you would n’t like the story that David lent me.  His aunt wrote it, and sent it to him.  I read it to Miss Lucy and the children.  It is about little Prince Benito and a wonderful flower.”

“I shall be pleased to hear it,” was the polite reply.

This seemed somewhat doubtful to Polly, used as she was to enthusiastic responses.

“Won’t it tire you?” she hesitated.

“I am always tired, little one.  Perhaps the story will rest me.”

“This I’ll run right upstairs and get it,” beamed Polly.  “I guess I can read it better than I can tell it.  You don’t mind staying alone while I’m gone?”

“No, indeed!” was the reply, yet she sighed after Polly had disappeared.  All the brightness of the room seemed to have vanished.

The little sad woman soon found herself watching for the light returning footfalls, and she greeted the child with a faint smile.

Polly read as she talked, naturally and with ease, and before she had finished the first page of the story her listener had settled herself comfortably among her pillows, a look of interest on her usually spiritless face.

It was a fanciful tale of a beautiful little prince who, by sowing seeds of the Wonderful White Flower of Love, transformed his father’s kingdom, a country desolate from war and threatened by famine and insurrection, into a land of prosperity and peace and joy.

At the last word, Polly, flushed with the spirit of the story, looked up expectantly; but her listener’s weary eyes seemed to be studying the pattern of the dainty comfort across her lap.  Sadly Polly gathered together the scattered manuscript sheets, and waited.