“I wanted you and Miss Lucy to have one,” she went on, “and Colonel Gresham, and David, and High Price, and Leonora, and Cornelius—­for he was so good to get my locket back.  Then the rest of them—­there are a dozen—­I thought I’d give to anybody that wanted one; but now—­” she halted appealingly.

“Well, if I were you, Thistledown,” and the Doctor threw his arm in a comradely way across the slim shoulders, “I should go straight along and give my pictures to those for whom I had intended them, with no thought about any lack of resemblance.  You sat for the photographs, and you are not to blame for any possible mistake the camera may have made; so don’t let it bother you.”

She gave a little gleeful chuckle.  “It is the camera’s fault, is n’t it?  I never thought of that.  Well, if you think it’s all right to give them away, it must be; but it did n’t seem quite—­ hones, you know.”  She looked up still a bit anxious.

The Doctor smoothed away the tiny wrinkle on her forehead, and smiled down into the clear brown eyes.

“It is perfectly right, Polly; in fact, it would be wrong to spoil so much pleasure for such a little reason.  The pictures are far more lifelike than most people’s are, and nobody will stop to compare them with the original, feature by feature.”

“No, I guess they won’t,” she laughed.  “You pick out the one you want to keep, and next I’ll let Miss Lucy choose.”

Dr. Dudley watched her, as she danced away happily up the stairs.  The he studied the photograph before him, doing exactly what he had assured her that no one would think of doing; but his final judgment, like his first intuition, was not in favor of the print.

The simplest of church weddings had been planned by the two most closely concerned, for neither had other home than the hospital; but Mrs. Jocelyn overthrew plans and arguments together.

“What is my big house good for,” she demanded, “if it cannot be useful at a time like this?  You shall come and make it merry once more in its old life!”

She ended by carrying off Miss Lucy for a whole week before the appointed day, and the hospital had to hustle another nurse into the ward which was both sorrowful and glad.

That was a week of happy upsetting for the stately old mansion.  Carpenters, electricians, florists, and tradespeople of various classes, all joined in the joyous whirl.  Dr. Dudley and Polly whizzed back and forth in the automobile, and the dignified grays were kept trotting to and from the house at all hours of the day and evening.

It had been early arranged for Polly and Leonora to remain with Mrs. Jocelyn for the two weeks that the Doctor and his wife were to be away on their wedding journey, and the little lame girl, who now had only the tiniest limp, was in alternate rapture and dismay.

“To think” she would exclaim, squeezing Polly ecstatically, “of me being in that splendid house, with you and that beautiful Mrs. Jocelyn for fourteen whole days!  But, oh, mercy!” she would cry, “I’m dreadfully afraid she’ll not want me so long!  I shall be sure to say or do something wrong!  I’m not used to grand folks like her;” and joy would end with a sigh.