When Miss Cicely Duer made up her mind to do a thing, she generally succeeded in doing it and she had determined to prove that her plan was a good one. So, first of all, she set to work putting the family in good humor. “For,” she said to herself, “they are ever so much more likely to be reasonable if they are in a cheerful frame of mind.” So she straightway wrote out a number of very elegant invitations bidding Grandpapa and Grandmamma Duer, Uncle Robert and Aunt Louise Duer, Uncle Arthur and Aunt Laura Hamilton, Uncle Elliot and Aunt Edith Duer, and Father and Mother Duer, “to come to Priscilla’s unbirthday party on Thursday afternoon, February 10th, at three o’clock and to bring with them, each and every couple, a little girl not over twelve years of age and not under six. The grandpapa and grandmamma or uncle and aunt bringing the nicest little girl will receive a prize. R.S.V.P.”

The invitations were sent out promptly and the answers came in without delay. Not one member of the family sent a regret: every one was “Pleased to accept Miss Cicely Duer’s kind invitation to Miss Priscilla Duer’s unbirthday party,” etc., etc.

“It is just like the Queen and Alice,” laughed Miss Cicely merrily, but her face grew sober as she thought of the search she would probably have before she could get anything like the right sort of little girl “to set before the king,” for the right sort of little girl doesn’t grow on every bush and Miss Cicely knew it, and even if it did its parents would not be likely to want to give it away.

“I shall not insist on her being pretty, of course, but she mustn’t be utterly hideous,” the young lady thought. “I don’t want her to be a goody-goody little prig but I can’t possibly have a young demon. Oh, dear me! Suppose I cannot find a child at all and have to go to the party without my share of small girl! How they will poke fun at me! It would be another case of

Her mind was so full of her mission, that one day while she was shopping she found herself replying to a salesman before whose counter she stood, “Yes, please. I want one between six and twelve. Truthful and not too mischievous,” and she only realized her mistake when he paused in measuring off the yards of silk she had selected and looked at her as if he thought she was mildly insane and ought to be carefully guarded.

Miss Cicely blushed furiously and tried to hide her embarrassment with a laugh. The shopman laughed too and Miss Cicely, to explain her absurd blunder, confided to him that she was really looking for a little girl between six and twelve years of age who was truthful and not too mischievous, and did they keep any of the sort in stock?

The salesman laughed again.

“Why, yes, madam, we do,” he replied. “Most of them are somewhat older than you want, to be sure, but we have one, at least right here now, that, come to think of it, ought to just fill the bill. Here! Cash! Cash one-hundred-and-five! Cash! Cash!”

As the salesman said no more Miss Cicely concluded he had merely replied to her joking question with a joking answer. He made out her bill-of-sale and placed it with her yards of silk and then again rapped upon his counter with the blunt end of his lead-pencil, repeating: “Cash! One-hundred-and five! Here, Cash!”

Miss Cicely felt vaguely disappointed. Of course she had known that, even in such a great department store as this, they did not have little girls on sale, but the shopman’s manner and his reply to her laughing question had been so serious that, for a flash, she had really thought he was in earnest when he said he thought they had one that might “just fill the bill.”

“It was very clever of him to carry out the joke so completely, any one would have thought him in earnest; but—well,—Miss Cicely was disappointed. She had searched and searched and not even the wee-est sample of a nice little girl had she been able so far to find. And Thursday was the day after to-morrow!

“Dear, dear!” she mused, “what in the world shall I do? The only place I haven’t tried is ‘The Home for Friendless Children’ and I purposely avoided it because I knew grandmamma and the aunts would fly there the first thing, and I thought I’d be superior and discover something quite original. Well, I suppose it serves me right! and my pride ought to go before a fall. But there’s nothing left but an institution evidently! Oh, me! I wonder if there would be a presentable little waif at the Orphan Asylum? Positively I must go there at once and see. How long one has to wait at these shops! Why doesn’t that Cash come?”

Miss Cicely grew almost irritable as she thought of her defeat. She had quite given up the idea of taking the prize at the contest she herself had arranged, but she could not face the ridicule that she knew would be heaped upon her by the family if, after all her fine talk, she failed to “produce” a “specimen” at all. Oh, dear! Why didn’t that Cash——

“Cash! Cash! One hundred-and-five!” called the salesman a third time.

A very thin, small arm was thrust forward toward the counter from between Miss Cicely and the crowding shopper next to her and a very small breathless voice replied:

“Yes, sir! Here, sir! Cash one-hundred-and-five, sir!”

The salesman nodded.

“This is the one I was speaking about, madam,” he said turning to Miss Cicely and indicating the arm and the voice just beside her.

Miss Cissy bent her head and looked down. There, at her elbow, almost crushed flat by the crowd, and breathless with running, stood a little errand-girl. She could not have been more than ten years old, but her great anxious eyes and the little grown-up furrow between her brows made her appear much older. Miss Cissy saw her small hand tremble as she handed the salesman her basket, and noticed, also in a flash, that it was a clean hand and that the shabby-sleeve through which it was thrust, was clean also. Miss Cicely moved to make room for the mite of a business-woman. The business-woman looked up—and the next moment Miss Cicely had put an arm about her.

“So you are Cash one-hundred-and-five?” she inquired, kindly drawing her to her side.

The child nodded, murmuring, “Yes’m,” and shoved her basket toward the salesman who pretended to busy himself putting the silk and bill-of-sale into it.

“And how old are you, I wonder?” pursued Miss Cissy.

“Ten, ’m,” answered Cash, feeling worried at these unbusinesslike interruptions, but trying not to let the fine lady see it.

“And your name is——?”

“Ca—I mean Polly—Polly Carter please, ’m.”

“Polly is one of our best cash-girls, madam,” put in the salesman quietly. “I don’t know what we’d do without Polly. She’s so quick and ready, we all try to get her to carry to the desk for us, and that’s why she didn’t come at my first call. She wasn’t loitering. She was just rushed with business. That’s what comes of being reliable and popular. Polly can always be trusted and she’s never cross.”

“Why, that is a royal recommendation!” said Miss Cissy approvingly. “Now, I wonder how it happens that Polly is a cash-girl? Hasn’t she anybody to take care of her? No father or mother?”

“They’re dead, ’m,” answered Polly promptly. “I have a big sister and she used to take care of me and send me to school. She worked here. She was behind a counter. And she did needlework besides, oh, beautiful needlework! but she got hurted last winter run over by a truck, and both her legs were under the wheels and—so now—I take care of her, and the s’ciety lets me ’cause I study when I’m through here, and sister, she teaches me and I’m never sick and it’s nec’ary, ’cause sister can’t do anything but her needlework now.”

Miss Cissy’s arm tightened about the waist of the little bread-winner.

“Where does your big sister live?” she asked quietly.

Polly gave the down-town east-side street and number and then reached out for her basket. She felt that she could not spare any more time to her personal affairs in business hours, even for such an elegant customer as this.

“Well, Polly, I’m very glad to have met you,” said Miss Cicely, “and I hope we shall see each other again. Here is a bright, new fifty-cent piece for you. Won’t you take it, please, and buy yourself something with it—whatever you like best.”

It gave Miss Cissy a thrill to see Polly’s face as she took the bit of shining silver; all in a flash it changed from the face of a little careworn woman to that of a dimpled child.

“I’ll get sister a book,” she cried happily. “I thank you ever so much!”

“Why, she’s actually pretty,” thought Miss Cissy and she pictured to herself Cash one-hundred-and-five clad in a neat white frock, with hair cut square round her neck and tied with crisp ribbon-bows over her temples. “She’ll do. Most certainly she’ll do. Now, if I can only get her!” she thought.

She was so entertained by her visions of the imagined Polly that it did not seem a second before the actual one had returned with her bundle and change. Miss Cissy took them from the salesman and, with a twinkle in her eyes, thanked him for helping her to find just the article she wanted. Then she hurried out into the street where her carriage was awaiting her.

It was a long, rough ride over the uneven stones of the down-town streets, but Miss Cissy did not care for little inconveniences. She was too full of hope to mind the jolts and jars that made the coachman grind his teeth. She readily found the tenement in which “big sister” lived and she had no trouble in finding “big sister” herself. The big sister who, by the way, was not, as it happened, big at all, but quite little, in fact, heard Miss Cissy out very patiently. She seemed used to listening to a great deal of talk and to seeing a great many strange, fine ladies, and to not allowing herself to be bewildered by their promises or them. She was extremely quiet and gave no sign of either pleasure or surprise as the splendid plans for Polly’s welfare were unfolded to her. How was she to know that this fine lady was in earnest and would prove as good as her word?

When Miss Cissy had quite finished she said slowly:

“It is very kind of you to offer to help us. It would be a grand thing for me, of course, to go to a hospital and be treated right, and I think your little cousin would like Polly, but—it would be very bad for Polly if, after she had had a taste of easy living, she’d have to go back to the cash-running again and—this,” pointing to the poor room. “I don’t think I’d better risk it for her, miss. Polly is a cheerful little soul, but you can’t tell, it might make her discontented later.”

But Miss Cicely was not one to be easily discouraged. She reassured and she explained, she argued and she urged.

At last big sister spoke.

“I’m bound to tell you this, miss,” she said anxiously. “You say your little cousin doesn’t know how to play—well, by the same token, neither does Polly, I’m afraid. Polly’s always been, as you might say, old for her age, and the last year she’s done nothing but work and wait on me. I’m afraid she’s forgotten how to frolic as children do—ought, I mean. The ‘little mothers,’ as they call them down here, haven’t much time for fun. Not but that she couldn’t learn, you know. And it all might come back to her, for she used to be as playful as a kitten, and there’s lots of life in her yet, poor lamb! But the cash-running has taken it out of her a lot. It might not be a good thing to put a child that has seen so much worry, with your little cousin that hasn’t seen any.”

“I know it—I have thought of that—” interrupted Miss Cissy eagerly,—“but children don’t take things to heart as we older ones are apt to do. I mean they don’t brood over their ills, and I know that after Polly gets rested she’ll forget her worries and be as gay as a lark. I saw it in her face when I gave her a bit of money. She changed, all in a twinkling, and was as plump and jolly as any child need be. Do let her come! I know she’ll be the one chosen for the place and think what it will mean if you can get proper care and treatment. It is possible you might really be cured. Think what it would mean to be really cured!”

Big sister’s eyes filled with tears. “Don’t speak of that, please,” she said hurriedly. “I am trying not to think of it. If I let you have Polly it won’t be because of what I’d get by it, I want you to believe that. It will be for the good that will come to the child herself. But I can’t answer you now anyway. I must think it over. And I must find out if Polly would be willing. Of course I would not tell her just how the case stands, for I don’t want her to know she will be on trial. It would make her ‘show off’ maybe, and then, too, I think Polly’s a dear, but I know there are many children much prettier and more taking than she is. It’s more likely than not that she wouldn’t get the place at all, and then, if she knew, she would be disappointed. I’ll let you know—say, Thursday morning. Will that do? That will give me to-day and to-morrow to consider. I don’t want to do anything hasty that, later, I’d be sorry for.”

“Couldn’t you possibly make it to-morrow?” pleaded Miss Cissy earnestly. “I’ll send a messenger down to you to-morrow. I want time too—I want time to get a few things ready before Thursday and—and—please do!”

Big sister thought it over for a moment. Then she nodded her head assentingly.

“All right, I will, miss, I’ll let you know to-morrow,” she said.

So it was settled and Miss Cicely drove away, if not quite in triumph, at least having gained a partial victory. She knew there would be no difficulty in getting Polly’s dismissal from the store. The firm would be glad to oblige so valuable a customer as Miss Duer, and she “felt it in her bones,” as she said to herself, that she would receive a satisfactory word next day from big sister. And, sure enough, she did. Early Wednesday forenoon her messenger brought back the intelligence that big sister was willing, and so was Polly, and that if Miss Cicely could arrange it with the store it would be all right.

How Miss Cissy did fly around after that! She astonished the superintendent at the store by flashing in upon him, with a demand for Cash one-hundred-and-five, and flashing out again with his consent to take her. Then she astonished Polly by popping her up-stairs into the “Misses’ Furnishing Department” and having her fitted out from head to heels in new clothes. Shiny black shoes and spotless white stockings; a lot of neat underclothes with trimmings at the edges, such as Polly had never even dreamed of before; a “sweet” white frock; a warm outer coat; a big felt hat with ribbons on it, and, last of all, and wonder of wonders! gloves and handkerchiefs and ribbons for her hair! Then off flew Miss Cissy to the hospital to arrange matters for big sister. Then back home again through the evening darkness and just in time to dress for dinner. She had not stopped to think how tired she was, and she did not now, but she was glad when she was at last able to go to her own room and to bed. It had been a long, and busy day.

The next morning she waked with the feeling that great things were to be accomplished, and before she was fairly dressed there was a knock upon her door, and on the threshold stood Polly with the maid who had gone down-town to bring her up. It seemed to Miss Cissy almost like playing dolls again to be washing and dressing this little girl; cutting her hair in a straight line around her neck, tying it with two bits of rosy ribbon over her temples, and slipping on her pretty underclothes and dainty frock.

The anxious look had faded from Polly’s eyes and the anxious furrows had disappeared from between her brows when, at length, she stood before Miss Cicely’s cheval-glass all “booted and spurred and fit for the fight” as her hostess merrily sang. They had a cozy luncheon up-stairs—just Miss Cissy and Polly together—at which Polly was so excited she could hardly eat. It seemed as if it would never be three o’clock and time to go to the party, but at last it was time and then off they rolled in, what seemed to Polly, the most splendid carriage in the world; just exactly as if she were Cinderella herself and Miss Cissy the Fairy-Godmother.

By this time Polly knew about Priscilla, of course, but she did not know about the other children who, like herself, were to be brought to Priscilla’s home, the best to be chosen for Priscilla’s playmate. She just thought she was going to a party and to make a long visit afterwards, for Miss Cicely had decided that if Polly were not voted the best, and another child was selected in her stead she herself would keep the little girl for a while, at least, and in the meantime big sister should be sent to a hospital where she would receive the best of treatment and the kindest of care.

So, when the carriage came to a halt before the great house in which Priscilla lived, Polly’s little heart beat quick with pleasure and excitement. To go to a real party! In brand-new clothes! Why it was just too good to be true! Miss Cicely looked into the bright little face and sparkling eyes and was glad that Polly did not know the real state of the case—that, in fact, her present and, maybe her future, was to depend on the way she behaved at Priscilla’s “unbirthday party.” It might have sobered her happy heart had she known it, for Polly, young as she was, had felt responsibility before, and would have realized what a heavy one lay upon her now. But she did not know and Miss Cicely did not give her the least little bit of a hint.

“I want her to be quite herself—quite natural,” she thought. “That will be the only way to decide the stuff she’s made of, and whether she is really the best or not.”

So Polly and Miss Cissy went hand-in-hand up the broad flight of steps, from the street. A big door was mysteriously opened as soon as they reached the top, and then, as it closed behind them, Polly heard a loud hum of voices, saw a soft flood of light and knew she was really at the party.