ar! what fun it will be! And with Esther for my duenna, things
are sure to turn out all right."

On the lowest steps Polly passed a small boy hobbling up toward
Esther's room. He was evidently a boy from the streets, as he was
shabbily dressed and carried half a dozen papers under his arm. But
there was a hungry, eager look in his face that Polly remembered having
seen sometimes in Esther's in those early days of her first coming to
Mrs. Ashton's home. So straightway she guessed that the boy was some
child, whom Esther had discovered, with a talent and love for music and
that she was giving him lessons in her leisure moments.

CHAPTER VIII

PREPARATIONS FOR THE HOLIDAYS

"But if you won't come, Betty dear, I shan't wish to give the party,"
Meg Everett announced in a disappointed fashion. "With Polly and
Esther not to be here, there are so few of our old Camp Fire circle
anyhow. And you see I only wanted to have our club and a few of John's
young men friends. The idea is that we girls are to cook the entire
dinner and then just talk or dance or play games afterwards. It is not
to be anything like a _real_ party."

Betty smiled. She and Meg and Mollie O'Neill were taking a winter
tramp through the woods in the direction of the Sunrise Cabin, which
had been closed for the past six months.

"I should dearly love to come, Meg," Betty confessed. "There is no use
in my pretending that I shouldn't feel desperately lonely with the
thought of your having such a good time without me. But mother----"

Mollie gave her arm an affectionate squeeze. "There, Betty Ashton,
that is just exactly what I knew you would say. So I talked the whole
matter over with your mother myself first. And she declares that there
isn't any reason why you should not accept Meg's invitation. She is
quite sure that your father would never have wished you not to be as
happy as possible. You have had trouble enough, goodness knows! And
then the extra disappointment of Polly's and Esther's remaining in New
York! I am glad enough Meg is going to give a party, and I hope there
will be dozens of delightful things that Polly O'Neill will miss. What
on earth do you suppose has possessed her to want to stay on with
Esther?"

And Mollie sighed. The three months without her sister may have passed
by in greater peacefulness than with her, but then Polly always added a
zest and flavor to existence. And this was the longest time that th