"You don't know that she'll let you go anyway, do you?" she asked
presently.

"Yes, she said I could, and then I asked her if I might curl my
hair. She snapped out a disagreeable 'no,' and I turned and came
upstairs."

Polly was doing some hard thinking.

"Queer, Jennie should marry at her age," Miss Sterling resumed
after a brief pause, wiping her eyes dry. "She is forty-one, only
two years younger than I."

"Are you forty-three? Nobody'd ever guess it." Polly gazed at her
critically. "I wonder if I couldn't curl your hair at the last
minute, and smuggle you downstairs, all wrapped up, so Miss Sniffen
wouldn't know. You could wet it out the next morning."

Miss Sterling shook her head with a wee smile. "I would if I
dared, but I don't. If Miss Sniffen weren't there to see, Mrs.
Nobbs would be, and nothing escapes her eyes. No, 't would be too
much risk."

"Maybe it would," Polly admitted, and then paused to listen. "It's
three o'clock and I must go. I halfway promised David and Leonora
I'd come down there this afternoon. I guess they're a little bit
jealous of you. It's handy to run over here, and they're so far
away. I should think you'd get tired of me, I come so much."

"Tired of you!" echoed Miss Sterling. "You are the only bit of