The details of what had taken place in the sick-room Polly wisely withheld; but the girls and boys were undoubtedly more interested in the account of the lightning’s striking the familiar big oak tree than they would have been in the more important part of that night’s strange story.

It was not many weeks afterward that Dr. Dudley brought Polly a message.

“The Colonel says he feels slighted because you don’t come to see him, and I promised to send you over.”

“OH, I shall have to go!” cried Polly.  “I’ll run right off and change my dress.”

Colonel Gresham was in a great chair by the window, and begged his small guest pardon for not rising to greet her.

“I’m not quite firm on my legs yet,” he laughed, “and I must n’t topple over, as Miss Batterson has left me for a whole hour.”

“Oh, then I’ll stay and wait on you!” beamed Polly.  “And if you get tired hearing me talk, you can go to sleep.”

But the Colonel seemed very wide awake, and after a gay chat he began:—­

“Dr. Dudley has been telling me about bringing you over here in that thunderstorm, and how you quieted me when nobody else could.”

“Yes,” replied Polly innocently, “You thought I was your little niece, Eva, and—­”

“What?” broke in her listener, amazement in his tone.

“Oh, I s’posed he ’d told you!” cried Polly, in dismay.  “I ought not to have—­”

“Yes, you ought!” he interrupted.  “What did I say?”

Polly hesitated.  She was not at all sure that Dr. Dudley would wish her to disclose the wanderings of the Colonel’s mind, since he had not done so himself.  But there seemed no other way, so she replied simply:—­

“Oh, you did n’t say much!  Only you kept calling for Eva, and so I pretended I was she, and I called you Uncle David.  And you heard the rain, and thought it was dripping on your head, and you wanted me to hold my hand up to catch it.  That was about all.”

Polly cast furtive glances at the Colonel.  She could make nothing of his face, beyond that it was very grave.  She wondered if he were displeased with her.

After a time he spoke.

“You have done me a kindness that can never be repaid.  Such debts cannot be balanced with money.  So we won’t talk about pay.  But I should like to do something for you—­give you a sort of remembrance.  I don’t know what would make you happiest; but you may chose, ’to the half of my kingdom’—­anything but Lone Star.  I’m afraid I should hate to give up Lone Star!”

Polly laughed, and the Colonel laughed too, which put the talk on a cheery footing, and she assured him that she should n’t have chosen Lone Star anyway, because she did n’t know how to take care of a horse, and had n’t any place to keep him in.

Then her face grew suddenly serious, and she sat gazing at the pattern of the rug so long that Colonel Gresham smiled to himself.