ubled.

"If only Mr. Randolph hadn't been sick!" said Polly plaintively.
"But Doodles says he is better!" Her face brightened. "Oh, David!
did you know Doodles has been singing to him?"

"No. I suppose that cured him." There was a little warning tone
in the rich voice.

"It has helped," Polly replied gently. "It makes him forget the
pain. Mr. Randolph sends after him every day and has his man take
him home again--isn't that nice?"

"M--hm," nodded David.

"Doodles was here this noon," Polly went on. "Something was the
matter with the car, and so he ran over while Murray was fixing it.
The Doctor says Mr. Randolph may go to ride to-morrow if it is
pleasant."

"When shall you see him?" asked David.

"Soon as ever I can--to think of Miss Nita's being shut up there,
and my not being able to get to her!"

"It wouldn't do any good to telephone," mused David, "or to write a
note."

"I'm afraid!" Polly shook her head. "If she'd grab those cards from
Mr. Randolph's boxes of roses, she'd take a letter. What do you
suppose she did it for?"

"Didn't want her to know who sent them."

"But why?"

"Oh, probably she's in love with him," replied David carelessly.

"Miss Sniffen?" Polly's voice was flooded with astonishment.

"Anything very surprising about that?" laughed David.

"Why, the idea! He couldn't!"

"No, he couldn't, but she could."

"I have thought of that," assented Mrs. Dudley. "I cannot account
for her actions in any other way."

"It's so funny!" giggled Polly. "And she probably knows he is
engaged to Blanche Puddicombe!"

"That is what stumps me!" exclaimed David. "Such a girl!"

"They say she has a fortune in her own name," put in Mrs. Dudley.

"Fortune!" scorned the boy. "I wouldn't marry her if she would give
me a hundred million!"

Mrs. Dudley laughed.

"She'd be better than Miss Sniffen," said Polly.

"But to think of coming home to such a wife as she'll make!" cried
David.

"And sitting down to dinner with her!" went on Polly.

David shook his head. "A man might stand it for one day, but for a
lifetime--good-bye!"

"It doesn't seem as if he would marry just for money," sighed Polly.

"That's what most men think of first. Isn't it, Mrs. Dudley?"

"Some of them," she agreed. "I can't believe they are in the
majority."

"She'll make the very crotchetiest wife!" asserted Polly. "He'll
have to keep her in a glass case! See how she went on up in the
pasture! The