"And that's why--" she checked her artless comment on his mourning. "I
say," she said in a sympathetic voice, "I _am_ sorry. I really am. Was
it a fire or a ship--or something?"

Her sympathy was very delightful. He shook his head. "The ordinary
table of mortality," he said. "First one and then another."

Behind his outward melancholy, delight was dancing wildly. "Are _you_
lonely?" asked the girl.

Mr. Polly nodded.

"I was just sitting there in melancholy rectrospectatiousness," he
said, indicating the logs, and again a swift thoughtfulness swept
across her face.

"There's no harm in our talking," she reflected.

"It's a kindness. Won't you get down?"

She reflected, and surveyed the turf below and the scene around and
him.

"I'll stay on the wall," she said. "If only for bounds' sake."

She certainly looked quite adorable on the wall. She had a fine neck
and pointed chin that was particularly admirable from below, and
pretty eyes and fine eyebrows are never so pretty as when they look
down upon one. But no calculation of that sort, thank Heaven, was