"Jean Dwight," said she, "if you'll never, never tell, I am going
to say something to you that I never told anybody before."

"What is it?" asked Jean curiously.

"You promise not to tell?"

"Why, of course, if you don't want me to."

"Well," said Polly, in a whisper, "I think Florence is a perfect
little flat. There! I suppose mamma would say I was as bad as Miss
Bean, with all her gossip, but I can't help it, it's true. But
don't let's talk about it any more, it makes me so cross. Perhaps
they won't come, anyway."

"Here comes Alan," said Jean, glancing up as the boy turned in at
the gate; "maybe he can tell us something about them." In fact,
the lad had come to see Polly for no other purpose than to talk
the matter over with her, for Polly was his truest friend in the
V, and the two children exchanged confidences with the same simple
good-fellowship they might have shown, had they both been girls.
Polly never snubbed Alan because he was younger, as Molly did, but
invariably stood as his champion when the other girls scolded him,
and tried to send him away; and Alan, on his side, never rubbed
Polly the wrong way, but respected her quick temper. Of course he
teased her, as every natural boy teases the girls with whom he is
thrown; but it was a gay, good-natured sort of teasing that never
irritated Polly in the least. During his long, rheumatic fever of
the winter before, she had been a most devoted friend, dropping in