pearl ring so she
would always remember. It was that pearl ring that made all the trouble."
And Miss Polly's voice trembled.

"How?" asked Dan very gently. He never had a sister or a girl cousin or
any one to soften his ways or speech; and little Polly's friendly trust
was something altogether new and strangely sweet to him.

"Oh, it broke up everything!" faltered Miss Polly. "That evening an old
woman came to the house and asked to see mamma,--oh, such a dreadful old
woman! She hadn't any bonnet or coat or gloves,--just a red shawl on her
head, and an old patched dress, and a gingham apron. And when James and
Elise and everybody told her mamma was sick, she said she would see her
anyhow. And she did. She pushed her way upstairs to mamma, and talked
awfully,--said she was a poor honest woman, if she did sell apples on the
corner; and she was raising her grandchild honest; and she asked how her
Meg came by that ring, and where she got it. And then mamma, who had
turned pale and fluttery, sent for me; and I had to tell her all, and she
nearly fainted."

"Why?" asked Dan.

"Oh, because--because--I had Meg in the garden and played with her, and
took her for a real true friend. You see, she wasn't a nice little girl at
all," said Miss Polly, impressively. "Her grandmother had an apple stand
at the street corner, and her brother cleaned fish on the wharf, and they
lived in an awful place over a butcher's shop; and mamma said she must not
come into our garden again, and I mustn't play with her or talk to her
ever, ever again."

There was no answer for a moment. Dan was thinking--thinking fast. It
seemed time for him to say something,--to speak up in his own blunt
way,--to put himself in his own honest place. But, with the new charm of
this little lady's flattering fancy on him, Dan's courage failed. He felt
that to acknowledge a bootblack past and a sausage shop future would be a
shock to Miss Polly that would break off friendly relations forever.

"So you gave up your real true friend?" he said a little reproachfully,
and Miss Polly hopped down from her rock perch and proceeded to make her
way back to the yacht.

"Yes, I had to, you see. Even dad, who lets me do anything I please, said
I must remember I was a Forester, and make friends that fitted my name.
And so--so" (Miss Polly looked up, smiling into Dan's face) "I am going to
make friends with you. Dad says he knows all about St. Andrew's College,
and you must be