“Fan don’t need me, and Sydney don’t care whether I come or not, so I’ll keep out of the way,” she would say, as if to excuse her seeming indolence.

Polly was not at all like herself that winter, and those nearest to her saw and wondered at it most. Will got very anxious, she was so quiet, pale, and spiritless, and distracted poor Polly by his affectionate stupidity, till she completed his bewilderment by getting cross and scolding him. So he consoled himself with Maud, who, now being in her teens, assumed dignified airs, and ordered him about in a style that afforded him continued amusement and employment.

Western news continued vague, for Fan’s general inquiries produced only provokingly unsatisfactory replies from Tom, who sang the praises of “the beautiful Miss Bailey”, and professed to be consumed by a hopeless passion for somebody in such half-comic, half-tragic terms, that the girls could not decide whether it was “all that boy’s michief”, or only a cloak to hide the dreadful truth.

“We’ll have it out of him, when he comes home in the spring,” said Fanny to Polly, as they compared the letters of their brothers, and agreed that “men were the most uncommunicative and provoking animals under the sun”. For Ned was so absorbed in business that he ignored the whole Bailey question, and left them in utter darkness.

Hunger of any sort is a hard thing to bear, especially when the sufferer has a youthful appetite, and Polly was kept on such a short allowance of happiness for six months, that she got quite thin and interesting; and often, when she saw how big her eyes were getting, and how plainly the veins on her temples showed, indulged the pensive thought that perhaps spring dandelions might blossom o’er her grave. She had no intention of dying till Tom’s visit was over, however, and as the time drew near, she went through such alternations of hope and fear, and lived in such a state of feverish excitement, that spirits and colour came back, and she saw that the interesting pallor she had counted on would be an entire failure.

May came at last, and with it a burst of sunshine which cheered even poor Polly’s much-enduring heart. Fanny came walking in upon her one day, looking as if she brought tidings of such great joy that she hardly knew how to tell them.

“Prepare yourself—somebody is engaged!” she said, in a solemn tone, that made Polly put up her hand as if to ward off an expected blow. “No, don’t look like that, my poor dear; it isn’t Tom, it’s—I!”

Of course there was a rapture, followed by one of the deliciously confidential talks which bosom friends enjoy, interspersed with tears and kisses, smiles and sighs.

“Oh, Polly, though I’ve waited and hoped so long, I couldn’t believe it when it came, and don’t deserve it; but I will! for the knowledge that he loves me seems to make everything possible,” said Fanny, with an expression which made her really beautiful, for the first time in her life.

“You happy girl!” sighed Polly, then smiled and added, “I think you deserve all that’s come to you, for you have truly tried to be worthy of it, and whether it ever came or not, that would have been a thing to be proud of.”

“He says that is what made him love me,” answered Fanny, never calling her lover by his name, but making the little personal pronoun a very sweet word by the tone in which she uttered it. “He was disappointed in me last year, he told me, but you said good things about me, and thought he didn’t care much then, yet, when he lost you, and came back to me, he found that you were not altogether mistaken, and he has watched me all this winter, learning to respect and love me better every day. Oh, Polly, when he said that, I couldn’t bear it, because, in spite of all my trying, I’m still so weak and poor and silly.”

“We don’t think so; and I know you’ll be all he hopes to find you, for he’s just the husband you ought to have.”