"Ilga!--Miss Price!"--her words stopped short, for Ilga was on her feet--was stepping forward! Her face matched her joyful greeting. In a minute Patricia was there, asking excited questions and begging the invalid to be careful. "As if I were not crawling!" laughed Ilga. "Oh, it does seem so splendid to walk! I've got lots of messages for you, Polly. Your father came to the station to see me off--just think of that! Wasn't it lovely of him? And your mother made me a long call yesterday! I wouldn't let anybody tell you a thing about my coming--I wanted to surprise you! You were surprised, weren't you?" she queried anxiously. "I'm so surprised I can't think," laughed Polly. "Did you know it when I came away--that you were coming, too?" "We'd just spoken of it, hadn't we, Miss Price? It wasn't a bit sure then. I was wild to come--just wild!" Ilga dropped into the easy chair placed for her, and drew a long, happy breath. "Aren't you awfully tired?" questioned Patricia. "Oh, I guess not!--I don't know. I only know I'm here and it's beautiful! Father and mother are coming next week; won't that be grand?" So the pleasant talk went on, until Miss Price carried her patient away to supper and rest. Merry days followed. Polly, remembering the old Ilga and her few school friends, looked delightedly upon the popularity which this subdued, humbled girl was winning. Once such attention might have incited her to overbearing conduct; now it seemed only to make her fairly beam with good-fellowship and happiness. "And she actually loves father!" Polly would smilingly tell herself, secretly rejoicing in the fact; but she rarely spoke of the change even to Patricia. It was enough that the miracle had been wrought. It did not need to be passed about in words. Although somewhat against his father's wishes, Harold remained for the week which he had started to spend in Fair Harbor; but all his pleading could not make the grudging consent cover a longer time. With tears in his eyes he bade Polly good-bye. "If you were only going, too!" he whispered. "Come on, Polly--do!" "Why, you know I can't!" she returned, half laughingly, half sadly. He muttered an exulting reply that she could not quite catch, and then the train came, and he was hustled away, leaving Polly to wonder what he had said. "It was something about what he was going to do when he was grown up," she mused. "I don't see why he should talk of that now--and here!" On her return to the hotel, she ran over to the croquet ground that skirted the opposite side of the road. A game was in progress, and for the time Harold faded into the past. Patricia being called to the house, Polly took her place, and she was driving a ball to the last stake when somebody cried out:-- "There's your cousin! What's he coming back for?" Polly glanced up, to see Harold grinning and waving to her jubilantly. He jumped from the car as it slowed, and came to meet her.