POLLY'S BUSINESS VENTURE

CHAPTER I

POLLY RETURNS TO AMERICA

Five girls were promenading the deck of one of our great Atlantic liners,
on the last day of the trip. The report had gone out that they might
expect to reach quarantine before five o'clock, but it would be too late
to dock that night, therefore the captain had planned an evening's
entertainment for all on board.

"Miss Brewster! Miss Polly Brewster! Polly Brewster!" came a call from
one of the young boys of the crew who was acting as messenger for the
wireless operator.

"Polly, he is calling you! I wonder what it is?" cried Eleanor Maynard,
Polly's dearest friend.

"Here, boy! I am Polly Brewster," called Polly, waving her hand to call
his attention to herself.

"Miss Polly Brewster?" asked the uniformed attendant politely, lifting
his cap.

"Yes."

He handed her an envelope such as the wireless messages are delivered in,
and bowed to take his leave of the group of girls. Polly gazed at the
outside of the envelope but did not open it. Her friends laughed and
Nancy Fabian, the oldest girl of the five, said teasingly:

"Isn't it delicious to worry one's self over who could have sent us a
welcome, when we _might_ know for certain, if we would but act
prosaically and open the seal."

The girls laughed, and Eleanor remarked, knowingly: "Oh, _Polly_ knows
who it is from! She just wants to enjoy a few extra thrills before she
reads the message."

"Nolla, I do _not_ know, and you know it! You always make 'a mountain
from a mole-hill.' I declare, you are actually growing to be childish in
your old age!" retorted Polly, sarcastically.

Her latter remark drew forth a peal of laughter from the girls, Eleanor
included. But Polly failed to join in the laugh. She cast a withering
glance at Eleanor, and walked aside to open the envelope. The four
interested girls watched her eagerly as she read the short message.

Polly would have given half of her mine on Grizzly Slide, to have
controlled her expression. But the very knowledge that the four friends
were critically eyeing her, made her flush uncomfortably as she folded up
the paper again, and slipped it in her pocket.

"Ha! What did I tell you! It is from HIM!" declared Eleanor, laughingly.

Dorothy Alexander was duly impressed, for she had firmly believed,
hitherto, that Polly was a man-hater. The manner in which she had scorned
Jimmy Osgood on that tour of England would have led anyone to be