Helen and Polly slept late on the following morning. They were both awakened simultaneously by Nurse, who, holding baby in her arms, came briskly into the room. Nurse was immediately followed by Alice, bearing a tray with an appetizing breakfast for both the little girls.

“The Doctor says you are neither of you to get up until you have had a good meal,” said Nurse. “And, Miss Polly, he’d like to have a word with you, darling, in his study about eleven o’clock. Eh, dear, but it’s blessed and comforting to have the dear man home again; the house feels like itself, and we may breathe now.”

“And it’s blessed and comforting to have one we wot of away again,” retorted Alice. “The young ladies will be pleased, won’t they, Nurse?”

“To be sure they will. You needn’t look so startled, loveys, either of you. It’s only your aunt and the dog what is well quit of the house. They’re on their road to Bath now, and long may they stay there.”

At this news Helen looked a little puzzled, and not very joyful, but Polly instantly sat up in bed and spoke in very bright tones.

“What a darling father is! I’m as hungry as possible.[Pg 79] Give me my breakfast, please, Alice; and oh, Nurse, mightn’t baby sit between us for a little in bed?”

“You must support her back well with pillows,” said Nurse. “And see as you don’t spill any coffee on her white dress. Eh! then, isn’t she the sweetest and prettiest lamb in all the world?”

The baby, whose little white face had not a tinge of color, and whose very large velvety brown eyes always wore a gentle, heavenly calm about them, smiled in a slow way. When she smiled she showed dimples, but she was a wonderfully grave baby, as though she knew something of the great loss which had accompanied her birth.

“She is lovely,” said Polly. “It makes me feel good even to look at her.”

“Then be good, for her sake, darling,” said Nurse, suddenly stooping and kissing the bright, vivacious girl, and then bestowing another and tenderer kiss on the motherless baby. “She’s for all the world like Peace itself,” said Nurse. “There ain’t no sort of naughtiness or crossness in her.”

“Oh, she makes me feel good!” said Polly, hugging the little creature fondly to her side.

Two hours later Polly stood with her father’s arm round her neck: a slanting ray of sunlight was falling across the old faded carpet in the study, and mother’s eyes smiled out of their picture at Polly from the wall.

“You have been punished enough,” said the Doctor. “I have sent for you now just to say a word or two. You are a very young climber, Polly, but if this kind of thing is often repeated, you will never make any way.”

“I don’t understand you, father.”

The Doctor patted Polly’s curly head.

“Child,” he said, “we have all of us to go up mountains, and if you choose a higher one, with peaks nearer to the sky than others, you have all the more need for the necessary helps for ascent.”

“Father is always delightful when he is allegorical,” Polly had once said.

Now she threw back her head, looked full into his dearly-loved face, clasped his hands tightly in both her own, and said with tears filling her eyes, “I am glad you are going to teach me through a kind of story, and I think I know what you mean by my trying to climb the highest mountain. I always did long to do whatever I did a little better than any one else.”

“Exactly so, Polly; go on wishing that. Still try to climb the highest mountain, only take with you humility instead of self-confidence, and then, child, you will succeed, for you will be very glad to avail yourself of the necessary helps.”

“The helps? What are they, father? I partly know what you mean, but I am not sure that I............