The little man peered at her anxiously through his big glasses, and he looked so exactly as he did on that morning so long ago when Polly’s eyes were at their worst, that she could do nothing but gaze speechlessly into his face.

“I see you don’t consider it quite best, child,” said the little doctor brokenly, “but you are trying with your good heart, to make it so.  Don’t be afraid; it is not too late to end it all.”

“I was thinking,” cried Polly with a gasp, “how good you were to me, when you saved my eyes, and how you kept Joel from dying of the measles.  Oh!  I couldn’t speak—­but I love you so.”

She threw her young arms around him.  “Papa Fisher—­for you are almost my father now—­I am the very, very happiest girl because you are going to live here, and now I can show you just how much I really and truly love you.”

The little man beamed at her.  Then he took off his spectacles, wiped them, and clapped them into place again.  “You see, Polly,” he said deliberately, “it was impossible to see your mother and not love her.  She has had—­well, there, child, I cannot bear to talk about it,” and he walked to the window, blew his nose violently on an immense pocket-handkerchief, leaving the words poised in mid-air.

“It was the greatest trial of my life that I couldn’t show her then when she was struggling so bravely to keep the wolf from the door, how I felt.  But my hands were tied, child,” he added, coming back, his usual self again.  “Now I can make her, she says, happy, that is, if you children like it.  Just think, Polly, she said happy!  It’s stupendous, but she said so, Polly, she really did!”

He folded his hands and looked at her in astonishment, behind which shone an intense gratification, that lighted up his plain little face till he seemed to grow younger every instant.

“Indeed she did!” repeated Polly like a bird, and laughing merrily.  “Oh, Papa Fisher! you ought to hear Mamsie sing.  She doesn’t know I’m hearing her, but she sings at her work now.”

“Does she?” cried the doctor radiantly.  “Well, Polly, we must see that she sings every day, after this.”

“Yes, let us,” cried Polly, clasping his hand; “we will.”

“And,” proceeded the doctor, “after the wedding is over—­I It really dread the wedding, Polly—­but after that is over, I do believe we shall all be comfortable together!”

Polly gave a little cry of delight.  Then she said, “You needn’t dread the wedding one bit, Papa Fisher.  There will be only the people that we love, and who love us—­Grandpapa promised that.”

“But that will make it very big,” said Dr. Fisher, with round eyes and a small shiver he could not suppress.

“Oh, no!” said Polly cheerily, “sixty-five friends; that’s all we are going to ask; Mamsie and I made out the list last night.”

“Sixty-five people!” exclaimed Dr. Fisher in dismay.  “Oh! isn’t is possible to be married without sixty-five friends to stare at you?”