relieved tone. "But I'll have it for
yer soon's I see my way to it. Sometime when Jane's feelin' real good,
I'll broach the subjec', I certain will."

Home with her ribbon and then over to the hospital sped Polly. She
found her friend impatiently striding up and down the limited space of
his room.

"I'd about given you up," he told her in an aggrieved tone. "I
concluded you were tired of coming to be eyes for a poor old blind
fellow like me, and so had stayed after school to play."

Polly looked at him keenly. Sometimes she did not quite know whether
to take him in fun or in earnest. Now his face was serious; but she
felt almost sure there was a twinkle behind that tantalizing bandage.

"You know I couldn't be tired of coming to see you," she said simply,
"and I never stay to play after school. I went on an errand for
mother, and then I met Mr. Bean, and he stopped to apologize for not
finding a letter that is--lost, a letter about my May relatives."

"What!" His tone startled Polly. "Are you related to the Mays? how?
Tell me!" He was waiting with eager, parted lips.

"Why," she hesitated, vaguely abashed all at once, "I'm Polly May, you
know--or was. I guess I haven't told you." Polly never talked of her
adoption, instinctively guarding as a precious secret what was
naturally well known throughout the city.

"No, you haven't; but won't you tell me now, please?"

"Father and mother adopted me the day they were married," she
explained simply. "Papa and mamma were dead, and I didn't belong to
Aunt Jane or anybody."

"Polly, who was your father--your own father?" The words tumbled close
on the heels of her sentence.

"Chester May," she answered dazedly. Something was imminent. She knew
not what.

"Chester May! And your mother's name? Was it Illingworth? Phebe
Illingworth?" The words shot like bullets.

"Why, yes!" gasped Polly. "How did you know?"

"Polly! Polly!" He thrust out his hands--they touched Polly's, which
he caught in a strong grip. "My mother was your father's sister, his
eldest sister! We are cousins, Polly, own cousins!"

Dr. Dudley came, with the nurse, before the story was ended, and then
it had to be begun and told all over again,--the old, old story of a
quarrel between the father and the "baby" of his family, of the hasty
leaving home of the boy, of the meagre news of his early marriage, and
lastly of the years that were empty of tidings. These Polly was able
to fill up in part, when th