sion on her companion's face did not
suggest that he thought of her as entirely ordinary.

CHAPTER IV

TEMPTATION

"You are perfectly absurd and I haven't the faintest intention of
confiding in any one of you." And Polly O'Neill, with her cheeks
flaming, rushed away from a group of girls and into her own bedroom,
closing the door and locking it behind her.

This winter at boarding school in New York City had not been in the
least what she had anticipated. Perhaps the character of the school
she and her mother had chosen had been unfortunate. Yet they had
selected it with the greatest care and it was expensive beyond Polly's
wildest dreams. For, apart from her own small inheritance, her
stepfather, Mr. Wharton, had insisted on being allowed to contribute to
her support, and not to appear too ungracious both to her mother and to
him, his offer had been accepted. Yet Polly did not consider herself
any greater success in thus masquerading as a rich girl than she had
been as a poor one. Was she never to be satisfied? Her school
companions were all wealthy and few of them had any ideas beyond
clothes and society. To them Polly had seemed a kind of curiosity.
She was so impetuous, so brilliant, so full of a thousand moods. Betty
Ashton had once said that to know Polly O'Neill was a liberal
education, and yet in order to know her one ought to have had a liberal
education beforehand.

Today during the recreation hour at "Miss Elkins' Finishing School,"
which was Polly's present abode, there had been a sudden discussion of
plans for the future. And Polly, partly because she was in a
contradictory mood and partly because she really wished it to be known,
had boldly announced herself as poor as a church mouse with no chance
of not starving to death in the future unless she could learn to make
her own living.

And this had started the onslaught of questions from which she had just
torn herself away.

For Polly had absolutely determined not to confide in any one of her
new companions her ambition to go upon the stage. They would not
understand and would only be stupid and inquisitive. Why, had they not
worried her nearly to death simply because of her acquaintance with
Miss Margaret Adams? For one day the great actress had driven up to
the school and taken Polly for a drive. And ever afterwards the other
girls were determined to find out how and when she had met her and what
she was like in every smalles