burden, when with passionate and protecting love she put her strong
young shoulders under the load and lifted her share, never so very
prettily or gracefully,--it is no use trying to paint a halo round
Polly's head,--but with a proud courage and a sort of desperate resolve
to be as good as she could, which was not very good, she would have
told you.

She would come back from the beautiful home of her friend, Bell
Winship, and look about on her own surroundings, never with scorn, or
sense of bitterness,--she was too sensible and sweet-natured for
that,--but with an inward rebellion against the existing state of
things, and a secret determination to create a better one, if God would
only give her power and opportunity. But this pent-up feeling only
showed itself to her mother in bursts of impulsive nonsense, at which
Mrs. Oliver first laughed and then sighed.

"Oh, for a little, little breakfast-table!" Polly would say, as she
flung herself on her mother's couch, and punched the pillows
desperately. "Oh, for a father to say 'Steak, Polly dear?' instead of
my asking, 'Steakorchop?' over and over every morning! Oh, for a
lovely, grown-up, black-haired sister, who would have hundreds of
lovers, and let me stay in the room when they called! Oh, for a tiny
baby brother, fat and dimpled, who would crow, and spill milk on the
tablecloth, and let me sit on the floor and pick up the things he threw
down! But instead of that, a new, big, strange family, different
people every six months, people who don't like each other, and have to
be seated at opposite ends of the table; ladies whose lips tremble with
disappointment if they don't get the second joint of the chicken, and
gentlemen who are sulky if any one else gets the liver. Oh, mamma, I
am sixteen now, and it will soon be time for me to begin taking care of