Polly | Page 9

Still father says there are quite two years between us, and that the scheme cannot be worked at all unless some one is distinctly at the head. He particularly spoke of you, Polly, and said that if you would not agree we must go back to the idea of Miss Jenkins, or that he will let this house for a time, and send us all to school."
"A worse horror than the other," said Polly. "I wouldn't be a school-girl for all you could give me! Why, the robin's nest might be discovered by some one else, and my grubs and chrysalides would come to perfection without me. No, no; rather than that--can't we effect a compromise, Nell?"
"What is it?" asked Helen. "You know I am willing to agree to anything. It is father."
"Oh, yes; poor Nell, you're the meekest and mildest of mortals. Now, look here, wouldn't this be fun?"
Polly's black eyes began to dance.
"You know how fond I always was of housekeeping. Let me housekeep every second week. Give me the money and let me buy every single thing and pay for it, and don't interfere with me whatever I do. I'll promise to be as good as gold always, and obey you in every single thing, if only I have this safety-valve. Let me expend myself upon the housekeeping, and I'll be as good, better than gold. I'll help you, and be your right hand, Nell; and I'll obey you in the most public way before all the other girls, and as to Fly, see if I don't keep her in hand. What do you think of this plan, Nell? I, with my safety-valve, the comfort of your life, a sort of general to keep your forces in order."
"But you really can't housekeep, Polly. Of course I'd like to please you, and father said himself you were to help me in the house. But to manage everything--why, it frightens me, and I am two years older."
"But you have so very little spirit, darling. Now it doesn't frighten me a bit, and that's why I'm so certain I shall succeed splendidly. Look here, Nell, let me speak to father, myself; if he says 'yes,' you won't object, will you?"
"Of course not," said Helen.
"You are a darling--I'll soon bring father round. Now, shall we go to bed?--I am so sleepy."
The next morning at breakfast Polly electrified her brothers and sisters by the very meek way in which she appealed to Helen on all occasions.
"Do you think, Nell, that I ought to have any more of this marmalade on fresh bread? I ate half a pot yesterday on three or four slices of hot bread from the oven, and felt quite a dizzy stupid feeling in my head afterwards."
"Of course, how could you expect it to agree with you, Polly?" said Helen, looking up innocently from her place at the tea-tray.
"Had better have a little of this stale bread-and-butter then, dear?" proceeded Polly in a would-be anxious tone.
"Yes, if you will, dear. But you never like stale bread-and-butter."
"I'll eat it if you wish me to, Helen," answered Polly, in a very meek, good little voice.
The two boys began to chuckle, and even Dr. Maybright looked at his second daughter in a puzzled, abstracted way. Helen, too, colored slightly, and wondered what Polly meant. But the young lady herself munched her stale bread with the most immovable of faces, and even held up the slice for Helen to scrutinize, with the gentle, good little remark--"Have I put too much butter on it, Nell? It isn't right to waste nice good butter, is it?"
"Oh, Polly, how dreadful you are?" said Fly.
"What do you mean?" said Polly, fiercely.
She dropped her meek manners, gave one quick glare at the small speaker, and then half turning her back on her, said in the gentlest of voices, "What would you like me to do this morning, Helen? Shall I look over my history lesson for an hour, and then practise scales on the piano?"
"You may do just as you please, as far as I am concerned," replied Helen, who felt that this sort of obedience was far worse for the others than open rebellion. "I thought you wanted to see father, Polly. He has just gone into his study, and perhaps he will give you ten minutes, if you go to him at once."
This speech of Helen's caused Polly to forget her role of the meek, obedient martyr. Her brow cleared.
"Thank you for reminding me, Nell," she said, in her natural voice, and for a moment later she was knocking at the Doctor's study door.
"Come in," he said. And when the untidy head and somewhat neglected person of his second daughter appeared, Dr. Maybright walked towards her.
"I am going out, Polly, do you want me?" he said.
"Yes,