“Well, it’s so funny!” Polly resumed.  “You see, our Sunday-School is going to send a boy in India to college, and last Sunday we had to tell how we’d earned what we brought.  A boy in Chris’s class, Herbert Ogden, said Mr. Randolph paid him fifteen cents apiece for carrying two boxes of roses to the June Holiday Home.  So after Sunday-School Chris went along with him and asked him if he remembered who the boxes were for.  He said, ’Oh, yes, because it was such a queer name!  They were both directed to Miss Ju-an-i-ta Sterling!’ Chris said it was all he could do to keep his face straight.  And the boy went on to say he remembered the last name because it made him think of sterling silver!  Wasn’t that the greatest?”

The exclamations and laughter satisfied even Polly.

“You’ll thank him right away, shan’t you?” she queried.

“I suppose I ought.” sighed the possessor of the roses.

“Don’t you want to?” Polly’s tone showed her surprise.

“Such notes are hard to write,” was the discreet answer.  She bent closer over her work than there was any need.  Her cheeks were pinking up again.

“I do believe you’re growing near-sighted!” declared Polly irrelevantly.

“No, I guess not,” she replied calmly.  “This button bothered me—­it’s all right now,” as Polly scrutinized the waist.

“I shouldn’t think you’d hate to write to Mr. Randolph.  I think he’s lovely!”

“I presume he is,” Miss Sterling said quietly.  “I’m not well acquainted with him, you know.”

“I’ll write it for you,” proposed Polly, “if you’d like me to.”

The little woman bending over the blouse caught her breath—­to think of missing the writing of that thank-you to Nelson Randolph!

“Oh, no, dear!  I won’t shirk my duty.  It wouldn’t look quite the thing for you to do it.”

“Perhaps it wouldn’t,” Polly agreed, “though I’d just as lief.”

CHAPTER IX

BLANCHE PUDDICOMBE

“You’re a great deal better, aren’t you, Miss Nita?” Polly was saying.

Miss Sterling gave a smiling nod across the bed.  She and Polly were putting on the covers.

“I think you’ve been growing stronger since the picnic.  Maybe it was the outdoors.  Father says there’s nothing like it for nerves.  I wish we could have another, now your ankle is all well; but it is too late for to-day.  Why can’t we go to walk, you and Mrs. Adlerfeld and Mrs. Albright and I?  I know a lovely road out Brookside Avenue way.”

“Well,” agreed Miss Sterling, “if it isn’t too far.  I feel equal to a good deal this morning.”

“Oh, that’s jolly!  We needn’t go any farther than we choose, you know.  I’ll bring a lunch, so it will seem like a little picnic—­things taste so much better out of doors.  Isn’t it lovely that you are stronger!  Did you tell Mr. Randolph that you’re better?”