I never hate Polly, do I Mary?"
But before Mrs. O'Neill could answer, Polly suddenly faced fiercely
about. "I hate you to-night, Betty," she insisted, and then to make her
words entirely unlike her actions, slipped one arm around her friend.
"Oh, you know that I don't really mean I hate you, I only mean that I am
horribly envious and jealous of your having all the money you want and
being able to do things without worry, not just things for yourself, but
things for other people." And Polly bit her lips and ceased speaking,
both because of the note of warning in her mother's face and because the
brightness had died away from Betty's.
"I wish you would understand, Polly, that just having things does not
necessarily make one happy; I often think it must be nicer to be poor
and to have to help like you and Mollie do. This afternoon I was
feeling quite forlorn myself, as I had a kind of headache and no one
came to see me, and then just like magic from out our haunted chamber
there appeared well, I can hardly call her a good fairy, she was too
homely, but at least a girl who told me of something so delightful that
it sounds almost like a fairy tale. I talked of it to father at dinner
and then rushed over to tell you, as I thought you might be interested,
but perhaps I had better wait--"
From the foot of the lounge Mollie O'Neill now interrupted.
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