Princess Pollys Gay Winter | Page 6

take care of those. We'll get seated so as to
reach home in just no time. I can't wait to take you to mamma."
The color brightened in Sprite's dimpled cheeks.
She was determined not to be homesick, and the ride along the fine
streets, and then up the long avenue, showed such grand residences,
such spacious piazzas, such velvet lawns and gorgeous masses of

flowers, that the sea captain's little daughter began to wonder if she
were in some new country, or at Avondale, where her new friends
actually lived.
"Here we are!" cried Polly, as the horse slackened his pace at the broad
gateway, "and this is Sherwood Hall, your new home for the Winter."
"For part of the Winter!" called a merry voice, and Uncle John
Atherton with Rose beside him in his big motor, laughed gaily as Sprite
turned to learn who greeted her.
For a moment the carriage and the motor stood side by side, while the
three small girls chatted gaily, then, believing that Mrs. Sherwood and
Polly should greet their guest, uninterrupted by neighbor or friend,
Uncle John bowled away down the avenue, they responded to Rose's
waving handkerchief, and then rode up the driveway.
"Oh, what a lovely, lovely house!" cried Sprite, "and what a dear place
to live in. I know I'm to be happy here!"
"Indeed you are!" cried Polly, "and here's mamma."
"Dear little girl," Mrs. Sherwood said, as Sprite stepped from the
carriage, and ran up the steps. "I'm glad to see you, and I shall be glad
indeed to keep you as long as Captain Atherton will permit. He was
over here last evening, and he said that he would let us keep you up to
the first half of the Winter, as we agreed, but after that he would have
you at his home with Rose, if he had to steal you. He laughed, but he
meant it, so see how very welcome you are at Avondale."
"Oh, it is sweet to have so many people love me," Sprite said,
gratefully, and her eyes were as bright as stars. She was tired with the
long car ride, and with Princess Polly, she sped to her room, there to
make her little self fresh, and fair for dinner.
"We're to share this room, and these two pretty beds are yours and
mine," said Polly.

"We could have had separate rooms, but I wanted you with me, and
beside, mamma said if you were with me, you couldn't be lonesome."
"Oh, I'd rather be with you," said little Sprite, "and what a lovely room
it is!"
She saw every dainty bit of color, every charming detail of the
furnishings, she saw the river as she looked from the windows, and the
vines peeping in at the windows, and she wondered how it had
happened that she now possessed such dear friends, who vied with each
other in making her their little guest.
She opened her suit case, and took from it a pale blue frock, with a
ribbon of the same tint for her hair.
The frock was of soft mull, and its coloring was like that of a pale aqua
marine.
She combed out her long, waving hair, and quickly tied it with the blue
ribbon, then, her hand tightly clasped in Polly's, descended the stairs.
Arthur Sherwood entered the hall just in time to see the two pretty
figures on the stairway.
"Well, well, and so the little sea nymph has come to live at Sherwood
Hall for a time. My dear little Sprite, I am truly glad to see you."
He took the slender hand that she offered him, and the three chatted
gaily until dinner was served.
The fine dinner, exquisitely served, was a rare treat for Sprite, and the
pleasant evening that followed made her at once feel that she was,
already, a part of the family.
In her room, after the happy evening, Sprite wrote a loving letter to the
dear father and mother at the home by the sea.
She addressed it, and placed the stamp upon it, and then gave it a place
on the dresser where she would surely see it in the morning, and thus

remember to post it.
Princess Polly would liked to have kept awake to talk, but Sprite was
very tired, and soon her answers became so drowsy that Polly knew
that she needed sleep and rest. Little Sprite had been the first to drop to
sleep, but, accustomed to early rising, she was the first to wake. She
slipped from her bed, glanced at Polly, saw that she had not yet
awakened, and quietly began to dress. She had learned, the evening
before, that there was a mail box just across the street, and she now
picked