m. They
felt no throes of envy, no bitterness. They loved and worked and "went
their way."

For once the pastor was powerless in the presence of grief. Both he and
Mandy left the room quietly, feeling that Polly wished to be spared the
outburst of tears that a sympathetic word might bring upon her. They
allowed her to remain alone for a time, then Mandy entered softly with a
tender good night and Douglas followed her cheerily as though nothing at
all had happened.

It was many weeks before Polly again became a companion to Douglas and
Mandy, but they did not intrude upon her grief. They waited patiently
for the time when youth should again assert itself, and bring back their
laughing mate to them.

Chapter VIII

When Polly understood that Toby was ACTUALLY GONE, it seemed to her
that she could never laugh again. She had been too young to realise the
inevitableness of death when it came to her mother, and now she could
scarcely believe that Toby would never, never come back to her. She felt
that she must be able to DRAG him back, that she could not go on without
him. She wanted to tell him how grateful she was for all his care of
her. She thought of the thousand little things that she might have done
for him. She longed to recall every impatient word to him. His gentle
reproachful eyes were always haunting her. "You must come back, Toby!"
she cried. "You must!"

It was only when body and mind had worn themselves out with yearning,
that a numbness at last crept over her, and out of this grew a
gradual consciousness of things about her and a returning sense of her
obligation to others. She tried to answer in her old, smiling way and to
keep her mind upon what they were saying, instead of letting it wander
away to the past.

Douglas and Mandy were overjoyed to see the colour creeping back to her
cheeks.

She joined the pastor again in his visits to the poor. The women of
the town would often see them passing and would either whisper to
each other, shrug their shoulders, or lift their eyebrows with smiling
insinuations; but Polly and the pastor were too much absorbed in each
other to take much notice of what was going on about them.

They had not gone for their walk to-day, because Mandy had needed Polly
to help make ready for the social to be held in the Sunday-school-room
to-night.

Early in the afternoon, Polly had seen Douglas shut himself up in
the study, and she was sure that he was writing; so when th