“Of course there was no more work for me after that, and if it hadn’t been for the money Tom had made me accept, things would have been much harder than they were. I had been boarding up-town before the accident, but when I was in the hospital, I wrote to Miss Collins--who used to live at Pine Brook, and was a friend of my mother’s--and asked if she could give me a room in her house. I thought it would be pleasanter than living with complete strangers. She was very kind, and offered me this lovely room, which happened to be vacant just then, so as soon as I was able to leave the hospital, I was brought here, and here I have been ever since. I have never been down-stairs since the day I was carried up, but Miss Collins lets me have my dear piano, and that is my greatest joy.” “But you haven’t told us about the letters to your brother,” said Dulcie. “I’m just coming to that, my dear. You see, when I first came to New York, I used to write Tom about my pupils, and he got to know their names, and would ask questions about them in his letters. Well, afterwards, I had to keep on writing about the same things, or he would have thought it strange. I have to use a good deal of imagination, because I have never seen any of those people since my accident.” “You mean you make up things,” said Dulcie, “just as if you were writing a story.” Miss Polly nodded. “That’s just it,” she said. “I used to write stories when I was a little girl, though, of course, none of them were worth anything. I have made up all sorts of stories about those old pupils of mine. I don’t know what they would say if they ever heard of them, but they are all pleasant stories, so perhaps they wouldn’t object very much. Sometimes I am able to write something that is really true. One of the girls I taught was married this winter. I saw an account of the wedding in the paper, and I cut it out and sent it to Tom in a letter. I was afraid I had made a mistake, though, when Tom wrote that Helen wanted to know what I wore to the wedding. I had to invent a costume, and that wasn’t easy, for I know very little about the fashions nowadays.” And Miss Polly glanced down at her plain blue wrapper with a rather sad smile. “I think you are the most wonderful person I ever heard of,” declared Dulcie, with shining eyes. “But just think how your brother will feel when he finds out,” said Daisy; “he will find out sometime, won’t he?” “I am afraid he will, and that is what worries me. There is one comfort, though; it won’t be quite as bad as it would have been at first, for Tom is doing better in business now, and the burden might not seem so very great.” “I don’t believe he would think it a burden at all, and I think you ought to tell him, I really do,” said Daisy, with unusual firmness. Miss Polly shook her head. “Not yet, dear,” she said; “some day, perhaps, but not just yet.”