Miss Cicely herself led Polly up-stairs and into a splendid room, where with her own hands, she unfastened the little girl’s coat and slipped off her hat and gloves. There was a fine young woman present who seemed to Polly to have manners which were ever so much prouder and haughtier than Miss Cissy’s and whose jaunty cap sat like a stiff crown upon her head, while her embroidered apron and white collar and cuffs were the crispest Polly had ever seen, and this dignified personage loftily offered to assist Miss Cicely, but was refused.

“No, thank you, Theresa, I prefer to do it myself,” Polly’s friend replied easily at once, as she smoothed out the wrinkles in Polly’s frock and plucked at the loops of her ribbon-bows. “By the way, are they all here, I wonder?”

“Yes, miss,” Theresa answered. “You’re the last, miss.”

“Then we must hurry,” said Miss Cissy, and her own wraps were cast aside in no time.

She and Polly went down-stairs as they had come up, hand-in-hand. At the foot Miss Cissy stopped long enough to give her little companion one last, careful look and then led her toward the room where all the talking was. As they entered it Polly heard a very tall gentleman say:

“Oho! Here she comes at last! We thought she had deserted. We had been led to believe that it was customary for a hostess to be present to receive her guests, but don’t let a little thing like that trouble you, Cicely. You usually manage to reverse the natural order of things and as your guests are here to receive you, it’s all right.”

Miss Cicely laughed and blushed and then the very tall gentleman suddenly stood extremely erect by the doorway and announced in a loud, solemn voice:

“Miss Duer and—and——”

“Polly Carter,” prompted Miss Cissy.

“And Miss Polly Carter!” echoed the gentleman.

If Polly had been used to children’s parties, this one would have seemed extremely curious to her, for there appeared to be so few children and so many grown-up people. By looking very carefully, one could have discovered five little girls, each of whom was tucked away somewhere behind or beside one of the couples of ladies and gentlemen present. None of the children seemed very glad to be there, and Polly, who herself made the sixth, was beginning to feel dimly disappointed, when Miss Cicely spoke up in her bright, jolly fashion:

“Now, dear people,” she said, “the first thing to do is to introduce these little girls to one another. Grandfather and Grandmother Duer, will you kindly let me present my little guest to yours? This is Polly Carter.”

A youthful-looking, white-haired old lady and gentleman arose solemnly from the far end of the long room, and came forward in a very stately manner, holding a flaxen-braided young person by the hand.

“This is Miss Katie Schorr,” announced Grandmamma Duer, in a voice that trembled a little (though that could hardly have been from age, for her eyes and skin were as young and soft as Polly’s own). “The Superintendent of our Mission Sunday-school was kind enough to introduce us to Miss Katie Schorr. He said she was a good, obedient child, and we believe it.”

Miss Cicely stooped and shook Miss Schorr by the hand in her own cordial way.

“How do you do, Katie dear,” she said. “I’m glad to see you here. I hope you will have a good time. This is Polly Carter. Won’t you two please stand beside me while I receive the other little friends? There, that’s right! Now, Uncle Arthur and Aunt Laura Hamilton, your guest, please.”

The very tall gentleman, Polly had noticed before, sprang up and gallantly assisted a handsome lady from her chair, offering her his arm with a flourish. She refused the arm at once, saying, “Nonsense, Arthur! don’t be absurd!” which Polly thought rather unkind of her. The little girl they brought forward was so pretty that it was delightful to look at her. Her name was pretty, too. Angeline Montague! And she had elegant manners, for when she was introduced to Miss Cissy she curtseyed beautifully, with her right hand upon her heart—or, rather, on the spot where she supposed her heart was.

As she stepped beside Polly and Katie, Polly heard “Aunt Laura” say to Miss Cicely in an undertone:

“Most excellent connections, I assure you. Her mother does my fine sewing. Theresa, up-stairs, recommended her to me. She says they used to have means. But the father—well, he’s in Canada or somewhere. Very pitiful!”

Polly wondered, while “Uncle Robert and Aunt Louise” were bringing up their little guest, why it was pitiful that Angeline’s father was in Canada. She had supposed, from what the “geografy” said about Canada, that it was a real nice place.

“‘One, two, three little Indians!’” hummed Uncle Arthur, as Miss Cicely, with a kind hand on Angeline’s shoulder, placed her next to Polly and Katie. “Now then, next customer!”

“Miss Rosy Hartigan!” announced Uncle Robert, handing forward a very, very shy little girl.

“Her father is an industrious plumber,” explained Aunt Louise in Miss Cissy’s ear. “But his wife died last fall, and the children have no one to look out for them while he is at work.”

Poor Rosy was frightfully alarmed. She set up a violent crying at once, shedding the biggest tears Polly had ever seen, and it took all Miss Cissy’s tact to comfort her.

In the meantime a lady and gentleman called “Aunt Edith” and “Uncle Elliot,” had brought up another little girl whose hair was as black as Polly’s boots, and whose eyes almost snapped with mischief.

“This is Miss Elsie Blair, and she lives at our beautiful Home for Friend—for Children,” explained Aunt Edith. “Mrs. McAdams, the matron, says Elsie is an excellent child.”

“Now, father and mother,” said Miss Cicely, clasping Rosy Hartigan with one hand, and patting the excellent Elsie into line with the other.

“Father” and “Mother,” it appeared, had brought Miss Sarah Findlay, who was twelve, and tall for her age. She was very thin, with not much hair to speak of, and no eyebrows at all. Miss Sarah came from the country and her father was a minister. “She had twelve brothers and sisters,” she confided to Polly.

“Now, I think we have all our party collected together,” said Miss Cissy cheerfully. “Suppose we play London Bridge. Come, Polly and Katie and Angeline! Come, Elsie and Sarah and Rosy! Join hands! Now sing! ‘London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down!’”

No one but Miss Cicely could possibly have managed to make those six little girls feel so at home and so well-acquainted with one another in so short a time. By the end of “London Bridge” they felt as if they had been friends all their lives. Then followed “Oats, peas, beans and barley grows,” and “Drop the handkerchief,” and in all the excitement Polly had no time to wonder where Priscilla was and why she did not come to her own party. After a while Miss Cissy sat down at the piano and played a gay march and then the company was invited out to supper.

Polly and Sarah walked together; Katie Schorr and Angeline Montague made a second couple and Rosy Hartigan and Elsie Blair brought up the rear.

“It’s going off surprisingly well,” remarked Aunt Laura, as the procession filed out into the hall. “They all seem decent children, but of the lot I prefer Angeline Montague. She has such superior manners. After her I should select Cicely’s Polly What’s-her-name.”

“Don’t whistle before you are out of the woods, my dear,” cautioned Uncle Arthur. “The party isn’t over yet.”

In the dining-room the children were reveling in good things to eat. Dainty chicken sandwiches; salad that made one’s mouth water; jelly and cake and candied fruit; bonbons and ice cream, and chocolate served in tall, slender cups, with whipped cream on top, and wee silver spoons in the saucers—spoons that looked as if they were intended for the daintiest of dolls.

“Gorry!” whispered Katie Schorr to Angeline Montague, “isn’t this fine?”

Uncle Arthur, standing in the doorway behind a heavy hanging, took a note-book out of his pocket and jotted something down in it.

At first there was not much chatter. The children were too busy for that, but by and by their tongues were loosened and then, how they did talk!

Rosy Hartigan became so brave that she actually consented to spell her name as the teacher in her school had taught her to do: “R-o, Ro, s-y, sy, Rosy; H-a-r, Har; syHar; RosyHar; T-i, ti; Harti; syHarti; RosyHarti; G-a-n, Gan; tigan; Hartigan; syHartigan; Rosy Hartigan!” At which Miss Cissy clapped her hands and cried: “Good!” but Elsie Blair whispered “Smarty!” in Rosy’s left ear.

Sarah Findlay, fired by Rosy’s success, said her brothers “Knew lots and lots of tricks. They had taught her to make the awfullest cross-eyed face in the world and she’d do it for them if they wanted her to. You just had to pull your mouth down at the corners with your two fingers, like this and then look cross eyed, like this and then——”

Uncle Arthur took out his note-book again and wrote down something in it, though no one saw him do it.

Suddenly Rosy Hartigan gave a piercing shriek and Miss Cissy hurried to her in distress, asking what the trouble was. It seemed that Rosy’s left arm had been most terribly pinched, so that it “hurt like everything,” but when Elsie Blair, who sat on that side of Rosy, was asked if she had pinched her arm, she protested “No, she hadn’t, and if Rosy went and said she had, Rosy was nothing but an old story——”

But Miss Cicely’s gentle hand over her lips smothered the rest of the word and, Rosy being comforted, supper went merrily on. At last, when nobody could possibly eat another mouthful, Miss Cissy said they would all go back into the drawing-room and have more games. So back they went and played “Hunt the slipper” and “A tisket, a tasket” and then a big bag was brought in and they all “grabbed” for presents. After that it was time to go home, but Uncle Arthur insisted on one more game and chose “Forfeits,” which was “the loveliest fun” in the world, for when Miss Cicely held the forfeits over his head he invented the funniest things you ever heard of that the owner must do to redeem them.

Katie Schorr was to take what Miss Cissy gave her without moving a muscle of her face or saying a word, and how could any little girl be expected to succeed in doing such an impossible thing as that when what Miss Cissy gave her was a perfectly darling doll all dressed in blue, which she was to keep for her very own? Why, Katie’s mouth danced right up at the corners and she said “O goody!” before she knew it.

Rosy Hartigan had to spell her name before all the grand ladies and gentlemen (which almost frightened her out of her wits) but she did it and then she got a doll just like Katie’s, only hers was dressed in pink.

Next, Elsie Blair had to “guess” who had pinched Rosy during supper and if she guessed wrong she was to have no doll. So Elsie, very red and shamefaced, guessed right immediately; she “guessed she did it herself” and then she received a doll dressed in red.

Sarah Findlay won her prize by “crossing her heart and promising sure and true, black and blue,” she’d never make her cross-eyed face any more, for Uncle Arthur had known a little girl once who had crossed her eyes just so, in fun, and when she tried she couldn’t get them straight again.

Polly had to tell them all what she wanted most in the whole world, but if Uncle Arthur thought it would be difficult for her to decide, he was mistaken. It did not take her an instant to say: “To have sister get well.” Then she got her doll—and a pat on the head from Uncle Arthur, as well.

But the most curious penalty of all came last. Angeline Montague was to give Miss Cicely what she had in her pocket and no one need ask what it was, for they should never know. So Angeline, very pale and trembling, and after fumbling in her pocket for an instant brought out something which she handed Miss Cissy behind the folds of her dress. Miss Cissy took it with a look so sad and grieved that Polly could have cried to see her. She bent down and whispered a secret in Angeline’s ear and then gave her her doll. That ended the game. They all joined in singing “America” and then the party was over.

While they were up-stairs getting ready to go home the grown-up people were very busy in the drawing-room below. Grandpapa and Grandmamma Duer were sorry Miss Katie Schorr had said, “Gorry!” as, of course, Priscilla’s playmate must be a little lady and ladies do not say “Gorry,” or words like that. Uncle Robert and Aunt Louise thought Rosy Hartigan was a good little girl, but something of a cry-baby and a telltale. Uncle Elliot and Aunt Edith said they could not dream of having Priscilla associate with a child like Elsie Blair who did not tell the truth until she was compelled. Miss Cicely’s father and mother felt that Sarah Findlay’s brothers had taught her more tricks than were necessary to complete Priscilla’s education, so the choice finally lay between Polly Carter and Angeline Montague.

Aunt Laura liked Polly well enough and agreed with the rest that she seemed an unaffected, honest little creature, but it was easy to see that Angeline’s pretty face and beautiful manners had bewitched her as well as the other ladies and that if Miss Cissy had no objection Angeline would be chosen for the place of honor. Miss Cissy was in the dressing-room overseeing the putting on of the children’s hats and wraps and saying good-bye to them before they were taken home. Uncle Arthur said it would be unfair not to wait for her to come down before finally deciding on Angeline. She had been the one to suggest a playmate for Priscilla and he thought she had the best right, next to Uncle Elliot and Aunt Edith, Priscilla’s father and mother, to decide who the playmate should be. Aunt Laura was willing, of course to wait for Cicely, but the more she thought of it the better she was pleased with the idea of Angeline for Priscilla’s companion.

Presently Miss Cissy came down. She listened patiently to everything every one had to say about the children, and she gave particular attention to Aunt Laura’s claim for Angeline, looking so sober meanwhile that her relations were quite sorry for her, for though she did not say a word in Polly’s favor, they gathered that she liked the little girl and was disappointed because Angeline had proved first-choice.

“Well, then,” concluded Aunt Laura briskly, “I suppose we can call it settled that Angeline is to be the one. I’m a pretty good judge of children and from the first I took to her. Your little Polly What’s-her-name is all right, Cicely. I haven’t a word to say against her and if Angeline were not there I should certainly choose her, but, under the circumstances, I think there can be no doubt that Angeline is the child for the place.”

Miss Cissy said nothing. For a moment there was silence. Then Uncle Arthur inquired politely:

“Have any of you ever heard it suggested that appearances are sometimes supposed to be deceitful?”

They all had heard it.

Uncle Arthur nodded. “Very well. Now, have any of you ever heard it mentioned that all is not gold that glitters?”

Aunt Laura broke in with a “Don’t be absurd, Arthur,” but her husband continued without noticing the interruption, “Or that handsome is as handsome does? Good! I see you have. Now, it appears there is still another proverb for you to learn which evidently Laura’s young friend, Miss Angeline, believes to be true and which is that a broken chocolate cup in the pocket is worth two in the saucer.”

Uncle Arthur paused. In a flash there broke out a quick chorus of questions.

“Arthur, what do you mean?” from Aunt Laura.

“Won’t you please explain?” from Uncle Elliot.

And “Is it a joke?” “What is the point?” and “How do you know?” from the rest.

Uncle Arthur waited a moment until the flurry was past. Then he said in a very serious voice and one that was not at all trifling: “I mean, simply, that Miss Angeline Montague is very pretty to look at and that her manners are charming and that it is the greatest of pities that she is not so nice a little girl as she appears to be, but the truth is—I hate to say it—but the truth is——”

“Well, what? Do hurry, please!” urged Aunt Laura.

Miss Cissy drew something out of her handkerchief, and held it in her outstretched palm for them all to see. It was one of Aunt Edith’s pretty chocolate cups broken into fragments.

“Poor little Angeline did it,” she explained sadly. “No one but Uncle Arthur saw the accident and there would have been no great harm done if Angeline had not turned coward and tried to place the blame on some one else. Uncle Arthur watched her closely and saw her slip Polly’s cup off its saucer and put it upon her own. You see, her idea was to have the blame laid on Polly if the accident were discovered and her plan would have succeeded if it had not been for Uncle Arthur, for James missed the cup at once and came and told me that it was gone from the saucer of the little girl I had brought. I was glad to be able to say she was not responsible for it and that Mr. Hamilton knew who was.”

Tears were in Miss Cissy’s eyes as she finished, and Uncle Arthur looked so grieved that Aunt Laura rose and went to him to give his arm a comforting pat. She knew that honorable people never “tell on” other people unless they must and when they have to, it hurts them sadly, so she felt very sorry for Uncle Arthur and for Miss Cicely too, and last and most of all, for Angeline.

So that was how it came about that when the choice of Priscilla’s playmate was put to vote Polly was “unanimously elected.”

Miss Cissy hummed happily to herself as she ran up-stairs to hug and kiss Cash one-hundred-and-five and explain to her that sister had given her permission to make Priscilla a long, long visit and that she was to begin it right off.