she will not have to make a continual effort to smile and talk to
people three times a day. Being agreeable, polite, and good-tempered
for fifteen years, without a single lapse, will send anybody into a
decline. You 'll never go that way, my Polly! Now, pardon me, but how
much ready money have you laid away?"

"Three hundred and twelve dollars."

"Whew!"

"It is a good deal," said Polly, with modest pride; "and it would have
been more yet if we had not just painted the house."

"'A good deal!' my poor lambkin! I hoped it was $1012, at least; but,
however, you have the house, and that is as good as money. The house
must be rented, at once, furniture, boarders, and all, as it stands.
It ought to bring $85 or $95 a month, in these times, and you can
manage on that, with the $312 as a reserve."

"What if the tenant should give up the house as soon as we are fairly
settled in San Francisco?" asked Polly, with an absolutely new gleam of
caution and business in her eye.

"Brava! Why do I attempt to advise such a capable little person?
Well, in the first place, there are such things as leases; and in the
second place, if your tenant should move out, the agent must find you
another in short order, and you will live, meanwhile, on the reserve
fund. But, joking aside, there is very little risk. It is going to be
a great winter for Santa Barbara, and your house is attractive,
convenient, and excellently located. If we can get your affairs into
such shape that your mother will not be anxious, I hope, and think,
that the entire change and rest, together with the bracing air, will
work wonders. I shall give you a letter to a physician, a friend of
mine, and fortunately I shall come up once a month during the winter to
see an old patient who insists on retaining me just from force of
habit."

"And in another year, Dr. George, I shall be ready to take care of
mamma myself; and then--

"She shall sit on a cushion, and sew a fine seam,
And feast upon strawberries, sugar, and cream."

"Assuredly, my Polly, assuredly." The doctor was pacing up and down
the office now, hands in pockets, eyes on floor. "The world is your
oyster; open it, my dear,--open it. By the way," with a sharp turn,
"with what do you propose to open it?"

"I don't know yet, but not with boarders, Dr. George."

"Tut, tut, child; must n't despise small things!"

"Such as Mr. Greenwood," said Polly irrepressibly, "weight two hundred
and nin