Princess Polly's Gay Winter Part 3

Would they be at the station? They had promised to be there when the train arrived.

She could not see from where she stood in the aisle.

Ah, now the train had actually stopped! She was out on the platform!

She was going down the steps. The kindly conductor was saying something about wis.h.i.+ng her a pleasant visit. The train was starting off.

Oh, was she utterly alone?

"Sprite! Oh, you've come!" cried a sweet, familiar voice, and Princess Polly caught both her hands.

"I was _so_ afraid that something would happen, and you wouldn't come,"

she cried.

"And _I_ was wondering what I'd do if I didn't see you when I left the car. Oh, _wouldn't_ I have been frightened?" said Sprite, with a nervous little laugh.

"Oh, how could you think I'd miss coming to meet you? Mamma said the last moment, as I ran down the steps:

"'I _do_ hope you will find Sprite at the station,' and I _did_," Polly said. "Now, come over to the carriage, and we'll fly to Sherwood Hall."

"This is my suit case, and, oh, there's my trunk," Sprite said.

"Oh, the coachman will take care of those. We'll get seated so as to reach home in just no time. I can't wait to take you to mamma."

The color brightened in Sprite's dimpled cheeks.

She was determined not to be homesick, and the ride along the fine streets, and then up the long avenue, showed such grand residences, such s.p.a.cious piazzas, such velvet lawns and gorgeous ma.s.ses of flowers, that the sea captain's little daughter began to wonder if she were in some new country, or at Avondale, where her new friends actually lived.

"Here we are!" cried Polly, as the horse slackened his pace at the broad gateway, "and this is Sherwood Hall, your new home for the Winter."

"For _part_ of the Winter!" called a merry voice, and Uncle John Atherton with Rose beside him in his big motor, laughed gaily as Sprite turned to learn who greeted her.

For a moment the carriage and the motor stood side by side, while the three small girls chatted gaily, then, believing that Mrs. Sherwood and Polly should greet their guest, uninterrupted by neighbor or friend, Uncle John bowled away down the avenue, they responded to Rose's waving handkerchief, and then rode up the driveway.

"Oh, what a lovely, _lovely_ house!" cried Sprite, "and what a dear place to live in. I _know_ I'm to be happy here!"

"Indeed you are!" cried Polly, "and here's mamma."

"Dear little girl," Mrs. Sherwood said, as Sprite stepped from the carriage, and ran up the steps. "I'm glad to see you, and I shall be glad indeed to keep you as long as Captain Atherton will permit. He was over here last evening, and he said that he would let us keep you up to the first half of the Winter, as we agreed, but after that he would have you at his home with Rose, if he had to steal you. He laughed, but he meant it, so see how _very_ welcome you are at Avondale."

"Oh, it is sweet to have so many people love me," Sprite said, gratefully, and her eyes were as bright as stars. She was tired with the long car ride, and with Princess Polly, she sped to her room, there to make her little self fresh, and fair for dinner.

"We're to share this room, and these two pretty beds are yours and mine," said Polly.

"We could have had separate rooms, but I wanted you with me, and beside, mamma said if you were with me, you couldn't be lonesome."

"Oh, I'd rather be with you," said little Sprite, "and what a lovely room it is!"

She saw every dainty bit of color, every charming detail of the furnis.h.i.+ngs, she saw the river as she looked from the windows, and the vines peeping in at the windows, and she wondered how it had happened that she now possessed such dear friends, who vied with each other in making her their little guest.

She opened her suit case, and took from it a pale blue frock, with a ribbon of the same tint for her hair.

The frock was of soft mull, and its coloring was like that of a pale aqua marine.

She combed out her long, waving hair, and quickly tied it with the blue ribbon, then, her hand tightly clasped in Polly's, descended the stairs.

Arthur Sherwood entered the hall just in time to see the two pretty figures on the stairway.

"Well, well, and so the little sea nymph has come to live at Sherwood Hall for a time. My dear little Sprite, I am truly glad to see you."

He took the slender hand that she offered him, and the three chatted gaily until dinner was served.

The fine dinner, exquisitely served, was a rare treat for Sprite, and the pleasant evening that followed made her at once feel that she was, already, a part of the family.

In her room, after the happy evening, Sprite wrote a loving letter to the dear father and mother at the home by the sea.

She addressed it, and placed the stamp upon it, and then gave it a place on the dresser where she would surely see it in the morning, and thus remember to post it.

Princess Polly would liked to have kept awake to talk, but Sprite was very tired, and soon her answers became so drowsy that Polly knew that she needed sleep and rest. Little Sprite had been the first to drop to sleep, but, accustomed to early rising, she was the first to wake.

She slipped from her bed, glanced at Polly, saw that she had not yet awakened, and quietly began to dress. She had learned, the evening before, that there was a mail box just across the street, and she now picked up the letter, and made her way down to the lower hall. The door stood wide open, only the screen door was fastened.

The maid, a few moments before, had opened the door that the fresh air might pa.s.s through the hall. Sprite slipped out into the garden, her letter in her hand.

She ran a short distance, then as the sunlight touched the glowing blossoms, she paused and looked about her.

Oh, what a fairy world it was! Her home at the sh.o.r.e had been placed on a broad stretch of sand, and only a few of the residences at Cliffmore boasted a flower, or tree on its grounds.

Now, with the garden gay with geraniums, tall gladioli, dahlias, and scarlet salvia, she looked in amazement and delight at the riot of color.

"Oh, how beautiful it is here!" she said.

Suddenly she remembered her precious letter.

She ran across the street, and slipped it in the box.

"There you go, and you'll tell the two dearest people in the world that I got here safely, and that everyone was dear to me. You'll tell them that I love them too."

Her heart was lighter, because now she knew that the letter that the dear ones at home were looking for, would soon be on its way.

She hurried back to the garden, where she sat for a long time watching the bees as they hovered over the flowers.

She would not go back to her room for fear of waking Polly, and she knew that she should not wander about the vacant lower rooms, so she decided to wait in the garden, until Princess Polly should come down.

She clasped her hands about her knee, and sat lost in a day dream. Her long rippling hair fell over her shoulders, and she made a lovely picture as she sat thinking of her home at the sh.o.r.e.

"The cliffs are white in the bright sunlight by this time," she said, softly, lest someone might hear her, "and the big gulls are flying over the water, or dropping to float on the crest of the waves.

"It is beautiful at home, and grand here at Avondale.