“Oh, grandfather, dear—” exclaimed Polly, holding up a slice temptingly on a plate, “Shortcake?”

“No, Polly, don’t coax me. Not a bite to eat. I’ve just been riding along the river. And girls, that reminds me.” The Admiral sank into one of the deep-seated garden chairs, and held up his finger at them all mysteriously. “I have seen her again.”

“The same girl?” asked Polly eagerly, bending forward and even forgetting the shortcake.

“The same one. I never saw a girl ride so splendidly in all my life. She is the admiration of every one along the river road. I heard Senator Yates telling somebody about her at dinner last evening, and bless my heart, she isn’t any larger than Isabel here. Yet, she must be older, but she does not appear so mounted. I can always rely on meeting her Friday afternoons about this hour. Never have I seen her on the street, mind—but ride! Polly, if you could sit a horse like that, and take the road as she does, I’d—why, I don’t know what I would do as a reward of merit.”

Polly leaned back, puzzled, and thinking hard.

“I don’t see who it can be, girls. Grandfather says he sees her every Friday afternoon, and has for weeks this spring, and I don’t know her at all. Maybe it is a guest at one of the houses outside of Queen’s Ferry.”

“Maybe it’s the ghost of the Lady Kathleen,” Ruth suggested gravely. “Don’t you remember her?

“I think you made that up, Ruth,” Polly cried, merrily. “Is the Lady Kathleen blonde or brunette, grandfather dear?”

“I should say she was rather sorrel,” remarked the Admiral judicially. “But I strongly advise this board of lady managers to discover her identity, and gather her into your circle. I can usually tell a thoroughbred, can’t I, Polly?”

“What color are her eyes, Admiral Page?” asked Isabel.

“Bless my heart, child, I did not get near enough for that. But if you will watch the river road about five any Friday afternoon, you will find her. Now, I must go and dress for dinner.”

“How can we find out who she is?” asked Isabel, when the Admiral left them for his late stroll by the river. “I don’t know anybody around Queen’s Landing that looks like that.”

“We’ll ask Miss Calvert on Monday,” Ruth declared. “She knows everybody who is anybody in this vicinity, and their pedigree back to the days when the first English ship sailed into Jamestown harbor. We must be going, Polly, and your shortcake was dandy. Next Friday it is my treat, girls. Don’t forget.”

Polly walked with them to the tall green hedge that separated Glenwood from the road, and waved good-bye. Then she hurried back to the arbor, and called Stoney up from the garden.

“I want the little green basket, Stoney, and a nice fresh pitcher of whipped cream, and then you and I will go for a walk up to the Hall.”

Aunty Welcome’s turbaned head appeared at the side door as the two started away.

“Whar’ you-all gwine to, Mis’ Polly chile?”

“Just up to the Hall, Aunty dear. I won’t be late for dinner, truly. And I’m taking some of your lovely shortcake to Crullers.”

Aunty smiled and shook her head.

“Nevah did see sech a chile for squiggling out of trouble. Yo’ jes’ think yo’ done cotched her safe and sound, and if she ain’t a-dancin’ away, and always leavin’ yo’ feelin’ so good, too. Stoney, you hold that basket steady, boy.”

Polly walked on up the broad, beautiful old street, Stoney in the rear. She had stopped to gather a great bouquet of lilac blossoms, white and purple. Those were for Miss Calvert, and when she reached the Hall, she left Stoney to carry them out into the fragrant old garden, while she went upstairs with her offering for Crullers the unfortunate. Polly was first and last a believer in diplomacy. As the Admiral was fond of remarking, she had inherited that trait from him.

There were two dormitories at Calvert Hall, one where the younger girls slept, the other for the Seniors. But even the dormitories had distinctive features. Each girl had her own cot, chair, washstand, and chiffonier. Around each individual corner were horizontal poles, from which hung long curtains that could be swung back, or enclosed, as the occupant saw fit. This gave privacy to each girl, and yet they were all in the same room.

The curtains hung soberly all about Crullers’ nook this day, just like a yellow and white catafalque. It was too early for the other girls to come upstairs, yet. Polly went softly to the curtains, and called gently.

“Crullers!”

There was no response.

“Crullers, I have brought you some shortcake.”

“I’ll be right out, Polly, dear,” called back Crullers, with a hasty change of heart. “Or, no, you may come in. I’m not even allowed to get out of bed.”

Polly pushed back the curtains, and there was Crullers, her hair braided in two long pigtails, one over each shoulder, undressed, with her pink kimono over her nightgown, and her face full of utter misery.

“You look just like somebody in history, and I can’t think who it is,” laughed Polly. “Somebody who sat up in bed at the last minute, and told everybody just what she thought of them before she died. Was it Catherine de Medici, or Queen Katherine?”

“Oh, Polly, don’t, please. Give me the shortcake quick. My heart is broken.”

“And your poor ‘tummy’ is all empty.” Polly handed her the basket, and sat down beside her. “Half of it is for Miss Murray.”

“Miss Murray!” Crullers pushed the cake from her indignantly. “Then I won’t eat a bit of it, Polly Page. How could you?”

Crullers turned right over, and buried her face in the pillow, sobbing, while the green basket barely escaped being capsized.

“How could I what?” asked Polly in astonishment. “Don’t you like Bonnie Jean?”

Then she stopped short, because, all at once, down at the far end of the dormitory, she saw Miss Murray, the teacher from out West, coming towards them with her quick, easy walk, and she was in riding habit.

“How are you, Polly?” she called, pleasantly. “Isn’t it a gem of a day?”

Polly looked at Crullers, doubled up beneath the blankets, and rose determinedly. But she left the shortcake in the basket within easy reach. If anything could take away Crullers’ trouble, it would be that.

“Could I talk with—you, Miss Murray please?” she asked. “I came expressly to see you.”

“Won’t it keep until Monday, Polly?” smiled back Jean, unpinning her black sailor hat, and letting down her long skirt. “I’ve only half an hour to dress for dinner. You know on Fridays I run away after the girls are through. This is my one weekly holiday.”

Polly leaned forward, looking up at the tall, slender figure in unconcealed admiration. Dearly did Polly love blow-away hair, as she would have called it. Curly, fluffy masses of blonde hair just verging on red, swept back from Jean’s low, broad forehead. Her face was rather broad, and her mouth was broad too, but so was her smile, and her teeth were even and white as new corn. There was a fine sprinkling of freckles over her nose. Her eyes were blue, not gray, nor hazel, but blue as forget-me-nots, and they always looked straight at you without blinking.

“I don’t want to bother you,” Polly said doubtfully. “It’s only about Crullers,—I mean Jane Daphne Adams. You know we girls always call her Crullers.”

“Jane Daphne is on my mind too, Polly,” Miss Murray rejoined. “Come up to my room, Polly, and we’ll talk it over.”

As they left the dormitory, Crullers’ tousled head and red moist face appeared from beneath the quilt, and she reached for the green basket and its contents with a sigh. She knew she was in the wrong, and that even Polly would not uphold her, when she heard the truth. And it troubled her, for Polly’s opinion was her court of last appeal in all things at Calvert Hall.

Ever since she had come there as a pupil the previous year, she had been under Polly’s wing, for none of the other girls could put up with her slow ways and blunders. And yet, as she sat up in the bed now, eating the shortcake with sad and deliberate relish, and dropping salt tears on the whipped cream, she could not see why everybody should have “jumped on” her just because she had rescued a stray cat, and hidden it in the dormitory closet. It was a live cat. She had fully intended feeding it. And it wasn’t her fault that the lock had snapped. She had been told to appear for sentence in Miss Calvert’s study the following morning, and there she had faced both the principal and Miss Murray. The latter was in charge of the dormitory Tuesdays and Fridays, and it was on a Tuesday night the cat had been found.

“Jane Daphne Adams,” Miss Calvert had said, in her stateliest manner, “you will bring my gray hair in sorrow to the grave. Ever since you came to the Hall, there has been trouble.”

“I didn’t mean to, Miss Calvert,” Crullers had said, helplessly.

“That is the only excuse you ever make for anything you do, Jane,” returned Miss Calvert with dignity. “You are totally irresponsible. I shall have to put you on parole for a week, and you are not to leave the grounds under any pretext whatever. Miss Murray will report to me nightly on your good behavior.”

After that it had seemed to Crullers as though she had a prison guard mounted over her. She was in disgrace. All the girls knew of it. It was tacitly understood at the Hall that no pupil was to associate with another pupil on parole. They were sent to Coventry and lived a life apart. The girls dreaded it more than any other form of punishment, and Crullers had dared to break her parole. That was the worst of it. Dearly did Crullers love pickled limes and doughnuts as a combination lunch, and there was one little cozy shop in Queen’s Landing where the best of both were found. So Crullers had slipped out the side gate of the kitchen garden, and had tried to get to the shop and back at noon. And she had been caught red-handed, with the warm doughnuts in one bag, and the pickled limes leaking out of another.

Polly heard all about it now. She followed Miss Murray out of the dormitory, and up to the third floor of the old square mansion. On each side of it, a wing stretched out. The west wing that overlooked the river, was the prettier, and the large room on its third floor had been given up to the young teacher from the West. Compared with the spacious rooms below, the ceiling seemed rather low, and the windows opened outward, lattice like. As they came in, the breeze from the river was blowing back the short, frilly muslin curtains.

“Here we are, Polly,” said Miss Murray, happily, laying aside her hat, and smiling at her guest. “This is the nearest approach to home that I have here. Sit down while I change my dress for dinner, and we will talk about poor, careless Jane Daphne. This room used to be Diantha Calvert’s nursery when she was a little girl—did you know that? She used to tell me all about it, and I always hoped that some day I might see it, but I never thought I should live in it myself.”

Polly turned quickly from the window, where she had been admiring the wide-spread view.

“Why, Miss Murray, I didn’t know that you knew Miss Diantha,” she cried, “I didn’t even know that she was still alive. You know Miss Calvert never talks to us girls about her at all. We always wondered if there was a mystery about her. Do you know?”