Just then Miss Pomeroy came across the road with her hands full of papers and letters, and with a little white bag, which she put in Polly’s lap as she took her seat. The bag had a deliciously lumpy feeling, and Polly’s mind leaped to gum-drops in an instant. “Open it and let us see what they are like,” said Miss Pomeroy, as she gathered up the reins, which had slackened in Polly’s hands during the interview with Mr. Boggs. “Chocolate creams and gum-drops. I suspect you’ll like the chocolates best, but I am very fond of gum-drops; so I’ll take one of those. One piece of candy is all I allow myself in a day, so you may carry off the bag to your own room when we get there, to keep me from being tempted.” Polly took one bite of a big chocolate drop after Miss Pomeroy had been served to her taste, and then she gave a little sigh of delight. “I never tasted a chocolate cream before,” she said, slowly. “I don’t suppose there’s anything else so nice to eat in all the world, is there? I wish Aunty Peebles had some of these. I shall save her half; that is, if you’re willing,” she added, hastily. “I’m afraid they’ll be pretty hard and dry before you see Aunty Peebles again,” said Miss Pomeroy, and Polly’s heart sank in spite of the delicious taste in her mouth. “I don’t expect she’s going to let me see Manser Farm again, till next Christmas, probably, if she adopts me,” thought Polly. “Of course, candy is good for ’most a year if you keep it carefully, but it does begin to get a little hard. I know, because those two peppermints Father Manser gave me yesterday were the last of the ones he bought for Thanksgiving, and they were just a little hard, though, of course, they were nice.” “Maybe I could give some of them to the butcher to take to Aunty Peebles, if--if he comes to Pomeroy Oaks,” ventured Polly, after a short silence, during which Daisy was trotting along the road, out of the village, past the square white church with its tall steeple, past the tinsmith’s shop, on toward the meadows beyond which lay Polly’s undiscovered country. “He comes twice a week,” said Miss Pomeroy; “but wouldn’t you like to send Aunty Peebles a little box of fresh candy by mail, some day, to surprise her? You could put it in the post office, and Mr. Manser would get it when he goes for the mail, and take it to her.” “Oh!” said Polly, her eyes brimming over with gratitude; “oh, aren’t you good! Why, Aunty Peebles hasn’t ever had anything from the post office excepting once a year her second cousin from way out West sends her a paper with the list of deaths in the town where she lives, and sometimes there’s an ink mark to show it’s been a friend of her second cousin’s family; but,” said Polly, shaking her head, “it ’most always made Aunty Peebles cry when it came, and I believe she would rather not have had it.” “I should say not, indeed,” assented Miss Pomeroy; “just hear that bird, Mary! He’s telling cheerful news, isn’t he?”