wedding journey. Still dimpling with laughter, she ran across to the
instrument; but as she turned back from the message her face was
troubled.

"Father says I am to come right over to the hospital," she told her
mother. "Mr. Bean--you know, the one that married Aunt Jane--has got
hurt, and he wants to see me. I hope he isn't going to die. He was
real good to me that time I was there, as good as he dared to be."

"I will go with you," Mrs. Dudley decided.

And, locking the house, they went out into the early evening darkness.

The physician was awaiting them in his office.

"Is he badly hurt?" asked Polly anxiously. "What does he want to see
me for?"

"We are afraid of internal injury," was the grave answer. "He was on
his way to you when the car struck him."

"To me?" Polly exclaimed.

"He was fetching a little box that belonged to your mother. Do you
recollect it--a small rosewood box?"

"Oh, yes!" she cried. "I'd forgotten all about it--there's a wreath of
tiny pearl flowers on the cover!"

The Doctor nodded.

"Mr. Bean seems to attach great value to the box or its contents."

"Oh, what is in it?"

"I don't know. But he kept tight hold of it even after he was knocked
down, and it was the first thing he called for when he regained
consciousness. I thought he had better defer seeing you until
to-morrow morning; but he wouldn't hear to it. So I let him have his
own way."

"Have you sent word to Aunt Jane?" inquired Polly, instinctively
shrinking from contact with the woman in whose power she had lived
through those dreadful years.

Dr. Dudley gave a smiling negative. "He begged me not to let her
know."

"I don't blame him!" Polly burst out. "I guess he's glad to get away
from her, if he did have to be hurt to do it."

"Probably he wishes first to make sure that the box is in your hands,"
observed the Doctor, rising. "She will have to be notified. Come, we
will go upstairs. The sooner the matter is off Mr. Bean's mind, the
better."

Polly was dismayed at sight of the little man's face. In their
whiteness his pinched features seemed more wizen than ever. But his
smile of welcome was eager.

"How do you do, my dear? My dear!" the wiry hand was extended with
evident pain.

Polly squeezed it sympathetically, and told him how sorry she was for
his accident.

Mr. Bean gazed at her with tender, wistful eyes.

"My little girl was 'most as big as you," he mused. "Not quite; she
wasn't but six when