ortable
chair.

"It won't be for long," she said, decidedly. "I shall go back as soon as I
can now that Bob and Emma are home."

"I hope you won't. Apart from the very great pleasure that it gives us all
to see someone from home, it would be a pity to let you go back without
seeing some of the country."

Polly laughed in spite of her weariness.

"It seems to me as though I'd seen the entire country of Mexico to-day,"
she said. "Such a trip!"

"Isn't it, though? The first time I made it I said: 'Here is where I
locate for life and found a colony. I'll never have the courage to go
home.' But I got over it."

Mrs. Van Zandt bustling in, followed by Scott, their hands full of
provisions, found the two chatting sociably.

"I'd have had cake for you," volunteered the former, "if Dolores and her
beau hadn't ate it all on me."

"It's like a midnight feast at boarding-school," chuckled the visitor,
waked up by the coffee.

"It's like the spreads we used to have when we was on the road," said Mrs.
Van Zandt, meditatively.

"On the road?" Polly's eyes opened wide.

"Mrs. Van was one of the original 'Floradora Sextette,'" remarked Scott,
soberly. "The only one who didn't marry a millionaire."

"A lot you know about it," retorted the lady. "I was in the 'Prince of
Pilsen,'" she informed Polly, confidentially. "I understudied the 'Widow'
on the road. It was an interesting life," she concluded, thoughtfully.

"It must have been," replied Polly, politely. "How did you happen to come
West?"

"Me? Oh, I came West with an invalid," replied Mrs. Van, easily. "She was
one of the cranky kind--middle-aged and none of her family could live with
her. You've seen that kind? They wanted she should have a trained nurse
and the trained nurse never was born that she could get along with.
Trained nurses are awful bossy--they can't help it, they're supposed to
be; that's all the difference there is between them and the ones that
ain't trained. So I come out to look after her."

"Did she die?"

"Not she. Get it out of your head that lungers always die--they don't. She
got well and went home and nagged the life out of her family for years.
Last I heard of her, she'd taken up with a young fellow she met at a
skating rink and her folks were wild for fear she'd marry him."

"Then you stayed out West?"

"Yes, and sometimes I've regretted it. New York's the place to live. I had
a swell flat in a good neighborhood and rented rooms to s