Wythie always seemed to be ready for any one's arrival, from the king to the ashman. She placidly smoothed her soft hair, of which not a lock was misplaced, pulled down her shirt-waist, made sure her belt covered the line of her skirt--which it invariably did--and was ready to go down to help her mother receive their caller, leaving Rob to Hester and Prue's mercies to be helped into her street gown. "Because I've got to go up to Aunt Azraella's when I take you to the station, and I can't go through the agony of dressing three times a day," she explained frantically struggling with a hook that refused to find its affinity in a loop half buried in the shoulder seam. "Not faded by late hours, Miss Roberta?" said Mr. Armstrong, rising to greet Rob as she entered looking radiant from her hurried toilette. "Only my glories of last night are faded, sir," said Rob, giving her hand to the old gentleman whose kindly voice and manner she found even more likable than her memory of them. "Now, my dear Grey young ladies, all of you, for my daughter must be older than these lassies' mother, I have not many minutes to spare if I want to lunch in town, as I mean to do," began Mr. Armstrong. "I want to hear the history of the child whose singing last night was so remarkable." "It is easily told, Mr. Armstrong," said Mrs. Grey. And she briefly related Polly's story, and that of the Flinders family. Mr. Armstrong listened attentively. "Now, for my reasons for asking," he said. "I have a sum of money entrusted to me, the principal well invested, and the interest left for the education of young girls whose talents and industry make them worth helping. Your little Polly is certainly wonderfully gifted, and there is a gap now in the application of the money; we can take another girl at once. I propose to make your Polly Flinders--what an extraordinary name!--our next experiment. What do you say to it?" "How could it be done?" asked Mrs. Grey considering, while Wythie and Rob flushed with pleasure over the proposition. "She is so little, so sensitive and frail that I do not feel like giving her over to strangers, even though her mother should consent to it."