“I’m—­pretty busy,” answered Polly, “I—­”

“Busy!  Huh, you must be!  Well, so’m I busy, or I should ‘a’ been up after you before this.  Guess you’ve stayed at that hospital ’bout long enough.  You might ‘s well be helpin’ me as gallivantin’ round with Tom, Dick, and Harry.”

“I—­thought I was going to stay all summer,” faltered Polly.

“I did n’t make no special agreement, and now there’s cannin’ and picklin’ and what-not to do, I could keep you out o’ mischief easy.  Where’d you get that dress?”

“Miss Lucy bought it for me.”

“She did, hey?  Well, ‘t ain’t hurt with trimmin’, is it?”

The Colonel appearing at the moment, Aunt Jane made a rather hurried departure, while she assured Polly that she would “be round before long.”

“Who is that woman?” inquired Colonel Gresham.

“My Aunt Jane,” was the soft answer.

“What’s her other name?”

“Mrs. Simpson.  Uncle Gregory—­that was her husband—­was killed when the building fell, and I was hurt.”

“Oh, yes!  I recollect.  Well, is Aunt Jane good to you?  Do you love her very much?”

Polly waived the first question, and proceeded to the second.  “I’m afraid I don’t love her at all,” she replied honestly.  “Of course, I ought to; but I don’t.”

“It is mighty hard to love some folks,” meditated the Colonel.  “I think I should rather do a season’s ploughing than to attempt to love that Aunt Jane.”

Polly smiled, and then returned to the question she had left behind.  “I guess she’s pretty good to me,” she said.  “She never whipped me.”

“Whipped you!” the Colonel exclaimed.  “I should hope not!”

“Aunts do whip sometimes,” Polly nodded soberly.  “Bessie Jackson’s aunt whipped her—­awful!  I’d run away!”

“Yes,” the Colonel agreed, “that would be the best thing in such a case—­though perhaps this Bessie deserved the whipping.”

“No, she did n’t!” Polly assured him.

“Well, now, I’ll tell you,” he went on confidentially, “if anybody ever lays a finger on you, just you come to my house, and I’ll see that you are treated all right.  Remember that now!”

Polly chuckled a “thank you,” and Colonel Gresham began talking about the park, the entrance of which they were nearing.

Polly tried to put Aunt Jane from her mind; but the threatened possibilities kept thrusting themselves into the Colonel’s merry speeches, until she scarcely comprehended what he was saying.  Little by little, however, the beauties of her surroundings overpowered all else, and Aunt Jane was for the time almost forgotten.

The wise men who had planned Forest Park had known better than to try to improve on nature’s handiwork, and rocks and ravines, brooks and pools, wooded slopes and ferny tangles, were left practically unchanged.  Polly loved birds and flowers and all the scents and sounds of summer fields and woods, and now, as the air came laden with faint perfume, and a carol burst into the stillness, she clasped her little hands together with a soft breath of delight.