her feeling for Billy has been anything but simple
friendliness, now it will not be difficult for her to adjust herself.
When later--" However, Mrs. Wharton was not able to finish her sentence,
for Polly had murmured, "She does know. Of course she has not said
anything to me and I never want to have to refer to it to her. But you
need not trouble. Billy was so stupid." Here Polly gave an irrepressible
giggle. "He proposed to both of us this afternoon. And I think he was
much more worried over Mollie's telling him that she should have been
taken into his confidence sooner, than he was over my refusal."

The clock on Polly's mantel shelf was striking one long stroke. Hearing
it Mrs. Wharton rose to leave the room, first pulling Polly up beside
her. The girl was several inches taller than her mother.

"Polly dear," she said, "so far as Mollie is concerned I don't agree
with the wisdom of your going away from home. But I want you to
understand something else, something that I have never properly
explained to you. It is not just narrowness or prejudice, this
opposition of mine to your going upon the stage. You remember, dear, why
your father left Ireland and came here to live in these New Hampshire
hills. And you know you are not so strong as Mollie, and I used to be
afraid that you had less judgment. Recently, however, you have seemed
stronger and more poised. And I had almost decided before I came in to
you tonight, that if in another year you are still sure that you wish to
make the stage your profession, I shall not stand in the way of your
giving it a fair trial. You don't know, but in your father's family not
so many years ago there was a great actress. She ran away from home and
her people never forgave her. I don't even know what became of her.
Nothing like that must ever happen between you and me." Mrs. Wharton
kissed Polly good night. "Have faith in me, dear, for I have understood
the ambition and the heart-burning you have suffered better than you
dreamed. I shall go to see Miss Adams again tomorrow. If you must try
your wings some day, perhaps there could be no better beginning than
that you should learn to know intimately one woman who has fought
through most of the difficulties of one of the hardest professions in
the world and has earned for herself the right kind of fame and
fortune."

CHAPTER III

Farewells

Polly O'Neill was entertaining at a farewell reception. April had passed
away and May a