“TEN LITTLE GIRLS” AND SARDIS MERRIFIELD Polly and Lilith did not go to Overlook the next morning. What was the use, Polly said. The expected guest might have been so delayed that he could not come for several days. He would doubtless telegraph. And Lilith agreed with her. Dolly Merrifield said nothing; she only smiled, and sighed a sorry little sigh that Polly did not hear, so very soft it was. Nevertheless, the “hospital force,” as Lilith called the grown-up members of the family, did not wander far from the house. “We must hang around and watch for a telegram,” laughed Polly. But no word came--and no Sardis, either. The waiting grew tedious. “It is getting on that child’s nerves,” fretted the White Nurse. “She’ll make herself sick with worrying.” Benedicta ran to the window every time she caught the whir of a motor car, no matter what she was doing. “He must be a very vacillating gentleman,” she commented, “not to do one thing or the other--I’d do something, if I were him!” “I think he does one thing pretty thoroughly,” returned Dr. Abbe, coming up on the kitchen piazza in time for the housekeeper’s remark. “He certainly stays away and keeps us guessing.” “He keeps me guessin’ what I’ll get to eat,” sniffed Benedicta. “I make something ’specially good, an’ then we eat every scrap, and that’s the way it keeps goin’. If he don’t arrive pretty soon, I shan’t care if he doesn’t have any eats at all.” The Doctor passed on with a generous tribute to her cooking, and the advice not to expect “the minister” until he came. Polly heard, smiled, and went on thinking of Dolly. Something must be done to interest the sorrowing little girl. “After dinner we’ll go up in the woods,” Polly said, “and I’ll tell stories, and then we’ll have supper up there.” All the little folks were smiling eagerly before Polly had finished planning aloud. Even Dolly Merrifield was mildly excited. So up in the woods they went. Those that could not walk rode in wheel-chairs or in somebody’s arms, and when every one was comfortable the story-telling began. They had heard about “How the Swallows Went to Bed,” “The Golden Horse” who told which way the wind blew and who after much trouble came at last to his own, and “Mother Graygobble’s Children” whose lives were saved by their parent’s wit and wisdom, when Benedicta appeared with her crocheting. “Don’t stop for me,” she told Polly. “It was too lonesome with you all up here. I locked up, ’cause I knew you’d ask me.” “You don’t think there’s any danger in leaving the house quite alone, do you?” inquired the White Nurse anxiously. Benedicta laughed. “It’s safe as Sunday,” she answered. “I’ve set a chair right in front of the front door, and anybody that knows me knows that means nobody’s home.” “Oh, but, Benedicta,” the White Nurse protested, “if a tramp should come along, it would tell him there isn’t a soul in the house, and he’d steal everything he could lay hold of!”