the young pastor stood looking down at the
picture of the frail, white-faced child, and her black, determined
captor.

"Here, here! What's all this about?" he asked, in a firm tone, though
evidently amused.

"Who are you?" returned the girl, as she shoved herself quickly back
against the pillows and drew the covers close under her chin, looking at
him oddly over their top.

"She done been cuttin' up somefin' awful," Mandy explained, as she tried
to regain enough breath for a new encounter.

"Cutting up? You surprise me, Miss Polly," he said, with mock
seriousness.

"How do you know I'm Polly?" the little rebel asked, her eyes gleaming
large and desperate above the friendly covers.

"If you will be VERY good and keep very quiet, I will try to tell you,"
he said, as he crossed to the bed.

"I won't be quiet, not for nobody," Polly objected, with a bold
disregard of double negatives. "I got to get a move. If you ain't goin'
to help me, you needn't butt in."

"I am afraid I can't help you to go just yet," Douglas replied. He was
beginning to perceive that there were tasks before him other than the
shaping of Polly's character.

"What are you trying to do to me, anyhow?" she asked, as she shot a
glance of suspicion from the pastor to Mandy. "What am I up against?"

"Don't yuh be scared, honey," Mandy reassured her. "You's jes' as safe
here as you done been in de circus."

"Safer, we hope," Douglas added, with a smile.

"Are you two bug?" Polly questioned, as she turned her head from one
side to the other and studied them with a new idea. "Well, you can't get
none the best of me. I can get away all right, and I will, too."

She made a desperate effort to put one foot to the floor, but fell back
with a cry of pain.

"Dar, dar," Mandy murmured, putting the pillow under the poor, cramped
neck, and smoothing the tangled hair from Polly's forehead. "Yuh done
hurt yo'sef for suah dis time."

The pastor had taken a step toward the bed. His look of amusement had
changed to one of pity.

"You see, Miss Polly, you have had a very bad fall, and you can't get
away just yet, nor see your friends until you are better."

"It's only a scratch," Polly whimpered. "I can do my work; I got
to." One more feeble effort and she succumbed, with a faint "Jimminy
Crickets!"

"Uncle Toby told me that you were a very good little girl," Douglas
said, as he drew up a chair and sat down by her side, confident by the
expression on