Polly settled down in the Birds' Nest under the protecting wing of Mrs. Bird, and a very soft and unaccustomed sort of shelter it was.
A room had been refurnished expressly for the welcome guest, and as Mrs. Bird pushed her gently in alone, the night of her arrival, she said, "This is the Pilgrim Chamber1, Polly. It will speak our wishes for us."
It was not the room in which Polly had been ill for so many weeks; for Mrs. Bird knew the power of associations, and was unwilling2 to leave any reminder3 of those painful days to sadden the girl's new life.
As Polly looked about her, she was almost awed5 by the dazzling whiteness. The room was white enough for an angel, she thought. The straw matting was almost concealed6 by a mammoth7 rug made of white Japanese goatskins sewed together; the paint was like snow, and the furniture had all been painted white, save for the delicate silver lines that relieved it. There were soft, full curtains of white bunting fringed with something that looked like thistle-down, and the bedstead had an overhanging canopy8 of the same. An open fire burned in the little grate, and a big white and silver rattan9 chair was drawn10 cosily11 before it. There was a girlish dressing-table with its oval mirror draped in dotted muslin; a dainty writing-desk with everything convenient upon it; and in one corner was a low bookcase of white satinwood. On the top of this case lay a card, "With the best wishes of John Bird," and along the front of the upper shelf were painted the words: "Come, tell us a story!" Below this there was a rich array of good things. The Grimms, Laboulaye, and Hans Christian12 Andersen were all there. Mrs. Ewing's "Jackanapes" and Charles Kingsley's "Water-Babies" jostled the "Seven Little Sisters" series; Hawthorne's "Wonder-Book" lay close to Lamb's "Tales from Shakespeare;" and Whittier's "Child-Life in Prose and Poetry" stood between Mary Howitt's "Children's Year" and Robert Louis Stevenson's "Child's Garden of Verses."
Polly sat upon the floor before the bookcase and gloated over her new treasures, each of which bore her name on the fly-leaf.
As her eye rose to the vase of snowy pampas plumes14 and the pictured Madonna and Child above the bookcase, it wandered still higher until it met a silver motto painted on a blue frieze15 that finished the top of the walls where they met the ceiling.
Polly walked slowly round the room, studying the illuminated16 letters: "_And they laid the Pilgrim in an upper chamber, and the name of the chamber was Peace_."
This brought the ready tears to Polly's eyes. "God seems to give me everything but what I want most," she thought; "but since He gives me so much, I must not question any more: I must not choose; I must believe that He wants me to be happy, after all, and I must begin and try to be good again."
She did try to be good. She came down to breakfast the next morning, announcing to Mrs. Bird, with her grateful morning kiss, that she meant to "live up to" her room. "But it's going to be difficult," she confessed. "I shall not dare to have a naughty thought in it; it seems as if it would be written somewhere on the whiteness!"
"You can come and be naughty in my bachelor den4, Polly," said Mr. Bird, smiling. "Mrs. Bird does n't waste any girlish frills and poetic17 decorations and mystical friezes18 on her poor brother-in-law! He is done up in muddy browns, as befits his age and sex."
Polly insisted on beginning her work the very next afternoon; but she had strength only for three appointments a week, and Mrs. Bird looked doubtfully after her as she walked away from the house with a languid gait utterly20 unlike her old buoyant step.
Edgar often came in the evenings, as did Tom and Blanche Mills, and Milly Foster; but though Polly was cheerful and composed, she seldom broke into her old flights of nonsense.
On other nights, when they were alone, she prepared for her hours of story-telling, and in this she was wonderfully helped by Mr. Bird's suggestions and advice; for he was a student of literature in many languages, and delighted in bringing his treasures before so teachable a pupil.
"She has a sort of genius that astonishes me," said he one morning, as he chatted with Mrs. Bird over the breakfast-table.
Polly had excused herself, and stood at the farther library window, gazing up the street vaguely21 and absently, as if she saw something beyond the hills and the bay. Mrs. Bird's heart sank a little as she looked at the slender figure in the black dress. There were no dimples about the sad mouth, and was it the dress, or was she not very white these latter days?--so white that her hair encircled her face with absolute glory, and startled one with its color.
"It is a curious kind of gift," continued Mr. Bird, glancing at his morning' papers. "She takes a long tale of Hans Andersen's, for instance, and after an hour or two, when she has his idea fully19 in mind, she shows me how she proposes to tell it to the younger children at the Orphan23 Asylum24. She clasps her hands over her knees, bends forward toward the firelight, and tells the story with such simplicity25 and earnestness that I am always glad she is looking the other way and cannot see the tears in my eyes. I cried like a school-girl last night over 'The Ugly Duckling.' She has natural dramatic instinct, a great deal of facial expression, power of imitation, and an almost unerring taste in the choice of words, which is unusual in a girl so young and one who has been so imperfectly trained. I give her an old legend or some fragment of folk-lore, and straight-way she dishes it up for me as if it had been bone of her bone and marrow26 of her marrow; she knows just what to leave out and what to put in, somehow. You had one of your happy inspirations about that girl, Margaret,--she is a born story-teller. She ought to wander about the country with a lute22 under her arm. Is the Olivers' house insured?"
"Good gracious, Jack13! you have a kangaroo sort of mind! How did you leap to that subject? I'm sure I don't know, but what difference does it make, anyway?"
"A good deal of difference," he answered nervously27, looking into the library (yes, Polly had gone out); "because the house, the furniture, and the stable were burned to the ground last night,--so the morning paper says."
Mrs. Bird rose and closed the doors. "That does seem too dreadful to be true," she said. "The poor child's one bit of property, her only stand-by in case of need! Oh, it can't be burned; and, if it is, it must be insured. I 'm afraid a second blow would break her down completely just now, when she has not recovered from the first."
Mr. Bird went out and telegraphed to Dr. George Edgerton;--
Is Oliver house burned? What was the amount of insurance, if any?
Answer. JOHN BIRD.
At four o'clock the reply came:--
House and outbuildings burned. No insurance. Have written particulars. Nothing but piano and family portraits saved. GEORGE EDGERTON.
In an hour another message, marked "Collect," followed the first one:--
House burned last night. Defective29 flue. No carelessness on part of servants or family. Piano, portraits, ice-cream freezer, and wash-boiler30 saved by superhuman efforts of husband. Have you any instructions? Have taken to my bed. Accept love and sympathy. CLEMENTINE CHADWICK GEEENWOOD.
So it was true. The buildings were burned, and there was no insurance.
I know you will say there never is, in stories where the heroine's courage is to be tested, even if the narrator has to burn down the whole township to do it satisfactorily. But to this objection I can make only this answer: First, that this house really did burn down; secondly31, that there really was no insurance; and thirdly, if this combination of circumstances did not sometimes happen in real life, it would never occur to a story-teller to introduce it as a test for heroes and heroines.
"Well," said Mrs. Bird despairingly, "Polly must be told. Now, will you do it, or shall I? Of course you want me to do it! Men never have any courage about these things, nor any tact32 either."
At this moment the subject of conversation walked into the room, hat and coat on, and an unwonted color in her cheeks. Edgar Noble followed behind. Polly removed her hat and coat leisurely33, sat down on a hassock on the hearth34 rug, and ruffled35 her hair with the old familiar gesture, almost forgotten these latter days.
Mrs. Bird looked warningly at the tell-tale yellow telegrams in Mr. Bird's lap, and strove to catch his eye and indicate to his dull masculine intelligence the necessity of hiding them until they could devise a plan of breaking the sad news.
Mrs. Bird's glance and Mr. Bird's entire obliviousness36 were too much for Polly's gravity. To their astonishment37 she burst into a peal38 of laughter.
"'My lodging39 is on the cold, cold ground,
And hard, very hard is my fare!'"
she sang, to the tune40 of "Believe me, if all those endearing young charms." "So you know all about it, too?"
"How did you hear it?" gasped41 Mrs. Bird.
"I bought the evening paper to see if that lost child at the asylum had been found. Edgar jumped on the car, and seemed determined42 that I should not read the paper until I reached home. He was very kind, but slightly bungling43 in his attentions. I knew then that something was wrong, but just what was beyond my imagination, unless Jack Howard had been expelled from Harvard, or Bell Winship had been lost at sea on the way home; so I persisted in reading, and at last I found the fatal item. I don't know whether Edgar expected me to faint at sight! I 'm not one of the fainting sort!"
"I 'm relieved that you can take it so calmly. I have been shivering with dread28 all day, and Jack and I have been quarreling as to which should break it to you."
"Break it to me!" echoed Polly, in superb disdain44. "My dear Fairy Godmother, you must think me a weak sort of person! As if the burning down of one patrimonial45 estate could shatter my nerves! What is a passing home or so? Let it burn, by all means, if it likes. 'He that is down need fear no fall.'"
"It is your only property," said Mr. Bird, trying to present the other side of the case properly, "and it was not insured."
"What of that?" she asked briskly. "Am I not housed and fed like a princess at the present moment? Have I not two hundred and fifty dollars in the bank, and am I not earning twenty-five dollars a month with absolute regularity46? Avaunt, cold Fear!"
"How was it that the house was not insured?" asked Mr. Bird.
"I 'm sure I don't know. It was insured once upon a time, if I remember right; when it got uninsured, I can't tell. How do things get uninsured, Mr. Bird?"
"The insurance lapses47, of course, if the premium48 is n't regularly paid."
"Oh, that would account for it!" said Polly easily. "There were quantities of things that were n't paid regularly, though they were always paid in course of time. You ought to have asked me if we were insured, Edgar,--you were the boy of the house,--insurance is n't a girl's department. Let me see the telegrams, please."
They all laughed heartily49 over Mrs. Greenwood's characteristic message.
"Think of 'husband' bearing that aged50 ice-cream freezer and that leaky boiler to a place of safety!" exclaimed Polly. "'All that was left of them, left of six hundred!' Well, my family portraits, piano, freezer, and boiler will furnish a humble51 cot very nicely in my future spinster days. By the way, the land did n't burn up, I suppose, and that must be good for something, is n't it?"
"Rather," answered Edgar; "a corner lot on the best street in town, four blocks from the new hotel site! It's worth eighteen hundred or two thousand dollars, at least."
"Then why do you worry about me, good people? I 'm not a heroine. If I were sitting on the curbstone without a roof to my head, and did n't know where I should get my dinner, I should cry! But I smell my dinner" (here she sniffed52 pleasurably), "and I think it 's chicken! You see, it's so difficult for me to realize that I 'm a pauper53, living here, a pampered54 darling in the halls of wealth, with such a large income rolling up daily that I shall be a prey55 to fortune-hunters by the time I am twenty! Pshaw! don't worry about me! This is just the sort of diet I have been accustomed to from my infancy56! I rather enjoy it!"
Whereupon Edgar recited an impromptu57 nonsense verse:--
"There 's a queer little maiden58 named Polly,
Who always knows when to be jolly.
When ruined by fire
Her spirits rise higher.
This most inconsistent Miss Polly."
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1
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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reminder
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| n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示 | |
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den
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| n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室 | |
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awed
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| adj.充满敬畏的，表示敬畏的v.使敬畏，使惊惧( awe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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mammoth
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| n.长毛象；adj.长毛象似的，巨大的 | |
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canopy
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| n.天篷，遮篷 | |
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rattan
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| n.藤条，藤杖 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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cosily
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| adv.舒适地，惬意地 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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14
plumes
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| 羽毛( plume的名词复数 )； 羽毛饰； 羽毛状物； 升上空中的羽状物 | |
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15
frieze
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| n.(墙上的)横饰带，雕带 | |
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16
illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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friezes
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| n.（柱顶过梁和挑檐间的）雕带，（墙顶的）饰带( frieze的名词复数 ) | |
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19
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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lute
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| n.琵琶，鲁特琴 | |
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orphan
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| n.孤儿；adj.无父母的 | |
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asylum
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| n.避难所，庇护所，避难 | |
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25
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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marrow
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| n.骨髓；精华；活力 | |
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nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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29
defective
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| adj.有毛病的，有问题的，有瑕疵的 | |
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boiler
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| n.锅炉；煮器(壶，锅等) | |
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secondly
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| adv.第二，其次 | |
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tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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34
hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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35
ruffled
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| adj. 有褶饰边的, 起皱的 动词ruffle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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36
obliviousness
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37
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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38
peal
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| n.钟声；v.鸣响 | |
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39
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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40
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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41
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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42
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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43
bungling
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| adj.笨拙的，粗劣的v.搞糟，完不成( bungle的现在分词 )；笨手笨脚地做；失败；完不成 | |
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44
disdain
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| n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑 | |
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45
patrimonial
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| adj.祖传的 | |
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46
regularity
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| n.规律性，规则性；匀称，整齐 | |
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47
lapses
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| n.失误，过失( lapse的名词复数 )；小毛病；行为失检；偏离正道v.退步( lapse的第三人称单数 )；陷入；倒退；丧失 | |
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48
premium
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| n.加付款；赠品；adj.高级的；售价高的 | |
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49
heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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50
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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51
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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52
sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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53
pauper
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| n.贫民，被救济者，穷人 | |
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54
pampered
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| adj.饮食过量的，饮食奢侈的v.纵容，宠，娇养( pamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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55
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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56
infancy
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| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
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57
impromptu
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| adj.即席的，即兴的；adv.即兴的(地)，无准备的(地) | |
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maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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