sures that Polly felt as if she were in a new kind of
merry-go-round and must stop and take breath. But she whirled on
and on, in company with her cousins and other girls and boys, and
everybody was so kind and so gay that she found not a moment to be
homesick or lonely in, although Fair Harbor seemed a very long way
off.

From the first she and her Cousin Harold were comrades. They
discovered that they had read the same books, that they enjoyed the
same sports, that they loved the same flowers and songs and fairy-tale
heroes. Harold had always envied boys with sisters, and now his dream
of a sister for himself seemed actually to have come to pass--only he
knew that the waking time must be soon.

Ever since it had been decided that Polly should come to New York she
had wondered with a vague fear if her relatives would urge her to
remain with them; but for a few days nothing was said of it. Then
Harold spoke out.

"I wish you were really my sister," he told her, as they stood
together watching the antics of some monkeys at the Hippodrome; "then
we could come here every Saturday."

"You couldn't come," Polly laughed. "You'd be away at school."

"No," was the serious reply, "I should get father to let me go to
school here. If you'd stay and be my cousin-sister, it would be just
exactly as good--oh, Polly! won't you?"

Her lips drooped sorrowfully. "I can't! truly I can't!" she answered,
just as she had answered his brother, in Fair Harbor.

Then they went past the cage of the very funniest monkeys of all, and
Harold did not even smile.

The day before the one set for Polly's going home she was given a
grand party by her cousins, and Uncle Maurice ordered the affair with
a free hand. She had never seen a house so converted into a garden of
flowers. Wandering about from room to room, she and Harold watched the
men as they placed potted plants, twined garlands, banked windows and
fireplaces with vines and blossoms, and arranged pretty nooks of
greenery and color. Finally they sat down in a little make-believe
arbor of roses, Polly busily admiring everything.

Harold was more quiet; he was even grave. At last his thoughts became
words.

"Oh, Polly, stay with me! do! I want you!"

"Why, Harold, you know I told you I couldn't!" she answered, almost
reprovingly.

"I know you say so," he retorted; "but you can! You can as well as
not! You just don't want to--that's why! But I think you might, to
please me! Do, Pol