e children are not big enough to take care of
themselves, they never will be. I can go as well as not."

She handed the note to Polly, while she shook out dresses and gloated
over the contents of the trunk.

"Of course you shall go!" shouted Polly as she finished the note, but
even as she said it she glanced obliquely up the road and waved a hand
behind her mother's back.

"Sure you shall go!" cried Adam, when he finished the note, and sat
beside the trunk seeing all the pretty things over again. "You just bet
you shall go. Polly and I can keep house, fine! We don't need any
cousins hanging around. I'll help Polly with her work, and then we'll
lock the house and she can come out with me. Sure you go! We'll do all
right." Then he glanced obliquely down the road, where a slim little
figure in white moved under the cherry trees of the York front yard,
aimlessly knocking croquet balls here and there.

It was two weeks until time to go, but Kate began taking care of
herself at once, solely because she did not want Nancy Ellen to be
ashamed of her. She rolled her sleeves down to meet her gloves and
used a sunbonnet instead of a sunshade. She washed and brushed her
hair with care she had not used in years. By the time the tenth of
July came, she was in very presentable condition, while the contents of
the trunk did the remainder. As she was getting ready to go, she said
to Polly: "Now do your best while I'm away, and I am sure I can
arrange with Nancy Ellen about school this winter. When I get back,
the very first thing I shall do will be to go to Hartley and buy some
stuff to begin on your clothes. You shall have as nice dresses as the
other girls, too. Nancy Ellen will know exactly what to get you."

But she never caught a glimpse of Polly's flushed, dissatisfied face or
the tightening of her lips that would have suggested to her, had she
seen them, that Miss Polly felt perfectly capable of selecting the
clothing she was to wear herself. Adam took his mother's trunk to the
station in the afternoon. In the evening she held Polly on her knee,
while they drove to Dr. Gray's. Kate thought the children would want
to wait and see them take the train, but Adam said that would make them
very late getting home, they had better leave that to Uncle Robert and
go back soon; so very soon they were duly kissed and unduly cautioned;
then started back down a side street that would not even take them
through the heart of