"No-he is young, and not _very_ bad-looking."
Polly thought seriously, then said: "Does he live in New York?"
"I won"t answer any more such questions, Polly, it isn"t fair unless you do your part," laughed Tom.
"Oh, well, then, please excuse me for ever mentioning you in the same _breath_ with Winnie," giggled Polly. "Now tell me who sent those roses."
"I will, Polly, but not to-day. I did not promise to tell you, at once-so I will wait until after John"s wedding."
Polly stamped her foot as Tom hurried away, and Eleanor laughed merrily at the hoax. But there was too much going on all about them, to bother, now, about roses that were almost two years old.
Mr. Maynard arrived from Chicago in time for the quiet little wedding at "The Church around the Corner," and then everyone went to the Studio for a reception. John and his bride left for a very short honeymoon, and later, all thoughts centered on Polly and Eleanor. It would be their turn to say good-by in a few days.
Tom Latimer outdid himself during the days intervening between John"s wedding and Polly"s sailing. Jim and Ken were back from college, but somehow the two girls who had been such fine young pals out in the Rockies, and on that Coney Island trip, now seemed several years older than these boys. They couldn"t understand it.
Mr. Fabian could have explained the change. It was mostly psychological, due to the advanced mental training his girls had received in their study of a chosen high profession. They truly were far superior, now, to either of the two boys at Yale, although they were not aware of it at the time.
The day for the sailing of the steamer arrived, and a gay party stood on the pier just before the good-bys had to be said. Mrs. Brewster gave Polly many warnings and advices, and Mr. Maynard begged Eleanor not to bankrupt him during her stay in Paris.
Books, flowers, fruit and candy, had been piled up in the arms of Ruth Ashby, Polly and Eleanor, until they could not shake the extended hands of their friends when the time came to really say good-by.
"Never mind your hands, we"ll kiss your faces!" laughed Mr. Maynard, and straightway began kissing the pretty struggling girls.
As everyone in the group was an old friend, each one took toll of the girls" cheeks, and just as Jim Latimer, the last in the line, caught a swift brush of Ruth"s ear, Tom Latimer strolled up.
"h.e.l.lo, Tom! Where have you been?" called his father.
"Better get your kiss, Tom, or you"ll be left," added Jim.
So Tom managed to get his "good-by" from Ruth and from Eleanor, but Polly blushed furiously, and reared her head.
"If another silly man kisses me, I"ll-I"ll-slap him!"
Of course everyone laughed uproariously at this, but the guard suddenly shouted, "All aboard." And the sailing party rushed up the gang-plank.
Once on deck, however, Polly remembered something she had meant to ask Tom Latimer. She leaned over the rail and called back:
"Oh, Tom! you never told me who sent the roses!"
"You"ll find out about it when you reach your stateroom," shouted Tom, making a megaphone of his hands. "I met him there, talking to the steward, and you will know as soon as you go down."
Eleanor giggled. "That"s where Tom was when Mr. Dalken dared anyone to take one of his girls away from him."
"But who could Tom have met in our stateroom, Nolla? I thought everyone was on the pier with us?"
The steamer had already swung down-stream, and the friends on the pier were mere dots, so the curious girls hurried down to see who had sent Polly the Valentine roses. Ruth accompanied them, as she felt she should have been the third in this girl relationship-like triplets, she said, one day, to her father.
Then the door was opened, and sweet fragrance greeted the girls. There in a corner of the stateroom stood a dozen American Beauty roses, each with a stem almost four feet long. And about the stems a golden cord was tied, and upon this cord hung a card.
The three girls stood admiring the great crimson beauties and then Ruth said: "See who they are from-and who for?"
"Why, they"re Polly"s, of course. The same "old valentine" sent them!"
laughed Eleanor.
Polly"s fingers trembled as she bent forward and read what was written on the card: "Your Valentine that was, and is, and always will be, in this world, and in the next, and forever, Tom."
"Oh, no! No! No! No! I won"t have you so, Tom!" cried Polly, throwing herself in the chair and covering her face with her hands. Eleanor and Ruth stood perfectly still, not knowing what to do or say.
Then Polly lifted her face. She was trying to smile. "Dear old Tom only did that to tease me. Isn"t he an old plague?"
"I should say he was!" exclaimed Ruth, innocently.
Eleanor with the worldly wisdom learned from her mother, added guilefully: "He sure is. But you tricked him, Polly."
"How?" eagerly inquired Polly.
"He was the only one in the party who didn"t get a kiss from you!"
laughed Eleanor.
"That"s so!" admitted Polly, but Eleanor was not sure whether her friend was sorry or satisfied at the result.
Then, as the days pa.s.sed, Eleanor noticed that Polly never mentioned the roses again, but they were kept as fresh as possible, and weeks later, Eleanor found one of them carefully pressed with the card still tied to it.
But this discovery, and all that happened during that Summer in Europe, while visiting famous places and viewing rare objects of antiquity, are told in another volume called "Polly and Eleanor Abroad."
THE END