that perhaps you scorn her
book and consider her presuming to send it to you--and that is what
hurts. She has lain awake nights and grieved so over it, I could
have cried for her!" Polly was near crying now.

"The worst of such mistakes," the man said sorrowfully, "is that we
cannot go back and blot out the tears and the suffering and make
things as they might have been. If we only could!"

"A note from you will make her very happy," Polly smiled.

"She shall have it at once," the minister promised; adding, "I am
glad she is in so beautiful a Home."

Polly shook her head promptly. "No, Mr. Parcell, it is not a
beautiful Home, it is a prison--a horrible prison!"

"Why, my dear! I do not understand--"

"I don't want you to understand!" Polly cried hurriedly. "I ought
not to have said that! Only it came out! You will know, Mr.
Parcell, before long--people shall know! I won't have--oh, I
mustn't say any more! Don't tell a word of this, Mr. Parcell.
Promise me you won't!"

"My dear child,"--the man gazed at her as if he doubted her
sanity,--"tell me what the trouble is! Perhaps I shall be able to
help matters."

"Oh, no, you can't! It must work out! I am going to see Mr.
Randolph as soon as--I can. But please promise me not to say a
word about it to anybody!"

"I shall certainly repeat nothing that you have told me. Indeed,
there is little I could say; I do not understand it at all. I
supposed the June Holiday Home was a model in every respect."

Polly shook her head sadly.

"I am there every day, Mr. Parcell, and I know! The ladies are
lovely--most of them. They can't say a word, or they'd be turned
out, and I've kept still too long! But I mustn't tell you any
more." Polly drew a long breath. "I must go now, Mr. Parcell. I
am so glad you like Miss Twining's poems! And you'll forgive me,
won't you, for all I have said?"

"There is nothing to forgive, my dear."

"I don't know, maybe I've said too much; but I knew you must have
lots of presents, and I kept thinking of those people that perhaps
you wouldn't thank, and I felt somebody must tell you, and there
wasn't anybody else to do it. Then, as I said, I hoped you would
like Miss Twining's poems well enough to tell her so. And I just
had to come!"

"Polly, I am glad you came!" An unmistakable break in the
minister's voice turned Polly's eyes away. "I have been
inexcusably thoughtless, not only this time but many a time before.
I