Polly's anxiety was so amusing to Eleanor and the whole situation so like a farce to her maturer love-affair, that she laughed merrily. But Polly was too concerned to take offence at the merriment. "Oh, Polly! What a little lamb you are, to be sure! How lucky for you that I am always at hand to keep you from being led to the slaughter--not altar!" Eleanor laughed again at her clever play on the hackneyed phrase. "That doesn't answer my question, Nolla. I am most serious in this matter and I do not wish to hear more ridicule from you." "I'm not ridiculing you or the awful mess you have made of your life," retorted Eleanor with a sly grin, "but I cannot help giving vent to my risibles when you take it all so seriously. I wonder how you would take the measles, Poll." "Oh pshaw, Nolla! What has measles to do with me, right now!" was Polly's impatient rejoinder. "I don't know, I'm sure. I was only wondering why you take everything so dreadfully in earnest. Now as far as your love tangle appears to be, I should prognosticate--hear that word, Polly? I am trying to act the wise magistrate for you--that there will be no suit for breach of promise, although there may be a case made out against you for alienating Tom's affections from Choko's Find Mine. On the other hand, you can serve a counter suit on Tom for alienating your affections from your first love--your business venture." While Eleanor had been explaining the law to her friend, the latter grew more and more impatient, and when the self-appointed magistrate concluded her version of law, Polly sprang up angrily. "I declare, Nolla, you will never be serious even at death! I'm disgusted with you, so there!" and Polly made for the door. Eleanor made after her, saying as she ran: "I'm sure I'll never want to take death seriously, Polly, for that is the time of all times when we need to be cheerful and prove to our dear ones that they have nothing to weep over--because I am of the firm belief that no one goes into oblivion. It is simply progression, you know." The sudden change from laughter to seriousness halted Polly's exit at the door, and she turned to look at her friend with a strange expression in her eyes. "Nolla, you should have been born in April--with the most changeable weather of the year. One moment you are too silly for words and the next you discourse on the most serious of all subjects." Again Eleanor laughed, teasingly: "Perhaps I should not have been born at all. Then, my family and friends would have been saved many trials. But I am here, you see, and they have to make the best of me." "That is exactly what we want to accomplish, don't you see? We want to make the best of you, but you just won't let us do it. You prefer to act like a big ninny instead of the cleverest girl in the world." "Always excepting you, dear!" and Eleanor bowed low.