Benedicta shook her head, as Polly turned to the piazza door. “Hold on!” she called in a hushed tone: “I might as well stop now and tell you. The cookies are baked, the bread’s goin’ all right, and the pies are ready--wait a minute and I’ll put the bread in.” She came from the oven, laid her holder on the only empty corner of the table, and glanced around. “Huh,” she muttered, “looks as if the Devil was havin’ an auction!” Then she sat down. “I s’pose you know all about Sereno Wheatley and me.” “No,” answered Polly. Benedicta looked at her with her eyes narrowed. “Do you mean to say, Miss Polly, that you haven’t asked what anybody in town could communicate?” “I have made no inquiries,” Polly replied. “I thought if there was anything that you wished me to know you would tell me.” “Well, if you aren’t the nicest! The idea of your not askin’! I s’posed you knew the whole story from A to Z. Dear me, I must tell it quick, for I’ve got lots of bakin’ to do before breakfast. “Sereno Wheatley is my half-brother. My mother married twice. Sereno was Wheatley’s child and I was a Clapperton. He’s considerable older ’n I am, but we were always chummy, some way--we liked each other, or did till he got married. We all s’posed he was goin’ to marry Isabel Lockwood, the prettiest girl in town; but if he didn’t go to Boston an’ get acquainted with Lily Starr, an’ before we knew anything about it he brought her home--married! We never liked her, not one of us. My father wouldn’t have ’em at home, so off they went, and I guess they had a hard time gettin’ along. She was pretty enough, but she’d been brought up different from what he had, and I s’pose I kept comparin’ her with Isabel Lockwood--Isabel was my chum. She died young. Lily was called a beauty, but she wasn’t a circumstance to Isabel. Anyway, she was a Democrat! That was enough for my father. But I d’n’ know. It looks different now from what it did then. I--I guess it’s partly that little Ferne kid an’ partly you, Miss Polly--anyway, I feel somehow different.