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Page 42
[Illustration: "She opened the book and read."]
"Do you see, Polly?"
"Yes, I see; but oh, I was so happy being a garden flower with the
sunshine on my head, and I can't seem to care the least little bit for
being a banian-tree!"
"Well," said Mrs. Noble, smiling through her own tears, "I fear that
God will never insist on your 'yielding shade and fruit to wide
neighborhoods of men' unless you desire it. Not all sunny garden
flowers become banian-trees by the falling of the walls. Some of them
are crushed beneath the ruins, and never send any more color or
fragrance into the world."
"The garden flower had happiness before the walls fell," said Polly.
"It is happiness I want."
"The banian-tree had blessedness after the walls fell, and it is
blessedness I want; but then, I am forty-seven, and you are seventeen!"
sighed Mrs. Noble, as they walked through the orange orchard to the
house.
CHAPTER XIV.
EDGAR DISCOURSES OF SCARLET RUNNERS.
One day, in the middle of October, the mail brought Polly two letters:
the first from Edgar, who often dashed off cheery scrawls in the hope
of getting cheery replies, which never came; and the second from Mrs.
Bird, who had a plan to propose.
Edgar wrote:--
. . . "I have a new boarding-place in San Francisco, a stone's throw
from Mrs. Bird's, whose mansion I can look down upon from a lofty
height reached by a flight of fifty wooden steps,--good training in
athletics! Mrs. Morton is a kind landlady and the house is a home, in
a certain way,--
"But oh, the difference to me
'Twixt tweedledum and tweedledee!
"There is a Morton girl, too; but she neither plays nor sings nor
jokes, nor even looks,--in fine, she is not Polly! I have come to the
conclusion, now, that girls in a house are almost always nuisances,--I
mean, of course, when, they are not Pollies. Oh, why are you so young,
and so loaded with this world's goods, that you will never need me for
a boarder again? Mrs. Bird is hoping to see you soon, and I chose my
humble lodging on this hill-top because, from my attic's lonely height,
I can watch you going in and out of your 'marble halls;' and you will
almost pass my door as you take the car. In view of this pleasing
prospect (now, alas! somewhat distant), I send you a scrap of newspaper
verse which prophesies my sentiments. It is signed 'M. E. W.,' and Tom
Mills says whoever wrote it knows you."
WHEN POLLY GOES BY.
'T is but poorly I 'm lodged in a little side-street,
Which is seldom disturbed by the hurry of feet,
For the flood-tide of life long ago ebbed away
From its homely old houses, rain-beaten and gray;
And I sit with my pipe in the window, and sigh
At the buffets of fortune--till Polly goes by.
There 's a flaunting of ribbons, a flurry of lace,
And a rose in the bonnet above a bright face,
A glance from two eyes so deliriously blue
The midsummer seas scarcely rival their hue;
And once in a while, if the wind 's blowing high,
The sound of soft laughter as Polly goes by.
Then up jumps my heart and begins to beat fast.
"She 's coming!" it whispers. "She 's here!
She has passed!"
While I throw up the sash and lean breathlessly down
To catch the last glimpse of her vanishing gown,
Excited, delighted, yet wondering why
My senses desert me if Polly goes by.
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