“Smells like crab meat,” some one would whisper, and from the inner shrine Polly would declaim,
Then a deep groan would rise from the “regulars,” and the Hungry Six would smile at each other, for revenge is sweet. They could not forget the midnight feasts which the “regulars” held while they were away.
Yet, at the very last minute, they had forgotten the chafing-dish. Some of the people were already leaving, and the imposing line of carriages outside the stately old Hall was growing thinner.
“Hadn’t one of us better go downstairs to the kitchen, and find Annie May,” suggested Ted, anxiously. “Polly’s probably talking to somebody, and has forgotten all about us. I saw the Admiral lift up his finger at her, and that signal between them always calls Polly to attention. Wasn’t it dear of him to come and talk to us! What was it he said? Oh, I know. Look, girls, like this.” Ted struck a dignified posture in the center of the floor, her chin set deeply in her lace collar, her brows drawn down in imitation of the Admiral’s own bushy ones.
“Standing with reluctant feet, Where the brook and river meet, Maidenhood and—”
In the doorway stood Polly, her curly hair, brown and glossy as a ripe chestnut, tied back in a cluster of long curls that reached to her waist, her brown eyes brimming over with mischief, and in her hand, wrapped carefully in a clean pillow case, was something the girls all recognized by its outlines.
“I thought of it the very last minute,” went on Polly, quickly, “Annie May hid it the last time we used it, you know, and I forgot to ask her where she had put it. And she’s down in the back hall, crying over the girls who are leaving, so of course I couldn’t disturb her. So I hunted around the kitchen, in the wash boiler, and up in her room, then I guessed. You know the linen closet in the back hall. It was in there, way down under some gray blankets on the bottom shelf. Wasn’t she the wise old darling to put it under the gray ones, so it wouldn’t show if it should happen to get a spot on them! And then I heard Honoria calling me.”
“Whatever did you do, Polly?” whispered the girls, tensely.
“I slipped the chafing-dish into a pillow case, left it on the hall settee, and went to see what she wanted. And afterwards, Mrs. Yates sent for me to be introduced to her.”