ll, I wished he was in college. He wants to go. Father says
Mr. Leverett has infected him with the craze."

"If I was a boy, I'd like to go. Cousin Leverett is going to take me to
Harvard next summer when they have their grand closing time."

"I'd rather be a girl and have a nice beau."

Plainly Polly had been saturated with dissipation.

Spring was suggesting her advent. The days were longer. The snow was
disappearing.

"Oh, Cousin Leverett, look--there are some buds on the trees!" she
cried.

"Yes. You can see them at intervals through the winter. They are wise
little things, and swell and then shrink back in the cold."

"I'm so glad. I can soon go out. I get very tired some days. I like
summer best."

"Yes. I do hope we shall have an early spring."

She looked up with smiling gladness.

That afternoon she had fallen asleep in the big chair. How almost
transparent she was. The long lashes lay on the whiteness of her
cheek--yes, it was really white. And there was very little color in her
lips.

Abner Hayes came up from the warehouse with some papers the _Ulysses_
had just brought in.

"That the captain's poor little girl?"

"Yes; she's asleep. She hasn't been very well this winter, but the first
nice balmy day I shall take her out driving. I've been almost afraid to
have the air blow on her."

"Yes, she ought to live and enjoy all that big fortune. It's a thousand
pities the captain couldn't have come back and enjoyed it with her. But
we must all go when our time comes. You never hear a hard word said
about him, and sure's there's a heaven he is in it."

Chilian held up his finger. Then he signed a paper that had to go back,
and asked if the cargo of the _Ulysses_ was in good shape.

Elizabeth called him downstairs after that. There was a poor man wanting
some sort of a position and Chilian promised to look out for him. He had
been porter in a store, but the heavy lifting made him cough. He would
have to get something lighter.

When he returned Cynthia was standing by his table, white as a little
ghost. He almost dropped into the chair.

"Was I dreaming, or did that man say my father couldn't come back to
Salem, that he--that he was----"

She swayed almost as if she would fall. He drew her down on his knee and
her head sank on his shoulder. She was so still that he was startled.
How many times he had wondered how he would get her told. Perhaps it had
been wrong to wait.

"My little girl! My l