wrong-doing, a result as hard for the mother to inflict as for the
child to bear. In her gentler moods, Polly realized that nowhere
else could she find so good a friend, so interested and
sympathetic in all that concerned her, and the two spent long
hours together, now talking quite seriously, now chattering and
laughing like children, with a perfect good-fellowship which
appeared very disrespectful to Aunt Jane, who believed in the old-
time rule, that children should be seen, not heard. However, Polly
never minded Aunt Jane's frown in the least, but went on playing
with her mother and petting her, confiding to her her joys and
sorrows, her friendships and her quarrels, and calling her by an
endless succession of endearing names, of which her latest was
Jerusalem, an epithet taken from her favorite, "Oh, Mother dear,
Jerusalem," and adapted to its present use, to the great
mystification of her aunt, to whom Polly refused to explain its
derivation.

Between his office hours and his patients, Polly saw but little of
her father; for Dr. Adams was the popular physician of the large,
quiet, old New England town where they lived. A man who had grown
up among books, and among thinking, wide-awake people, he was a
worthy descendant of the two presidents with whom he claimed
kinship. He was a strong, fine-looking man, so full of quiet
energy that his very presence in the sick-room was encouraging to
the invalid; and he had come to be at once the friend, physician,
and adviser of every family in town, whether rich or poor. If his
patients could afford to pay him for his visits, very well; if
not, it was just as well, for neither Dr. Adams nor his wife
desired to be rich. To live comfortably themselves, to lay up a
little for the future, and to be able to help their poorer