Polly of Lady Gay Cottage Part 26

"Yes, I know," returned David grimly, "but it isn't just for Lone Star's health."

"Maybe it's business then. Did you wish you were with him?"

"Oh, no, not that at all!" David hastened to say. "Perhaps I oughtn't to speak of it--I shouldn't only to you. But I know you won't tell."

"Tell what?" laughed Polly. "I don't know anything to tell, and I wouldn't tell it if I did!"

"I don't know either--wish I could find out; then we'd know what to expect."

"What do you mean, David Collins? Why do you care where your uncle goes?"

"Because it may make a great deal of difference to mamma and me. We're dreadfully worried."

Polly's face took on an anxious shadow.

"You're not afraid he's--getting to gambling--or drinking, are you?"

Her voice dropped almost to a whisper.

David stared as if he doubted his hearing; then he threw back his head, and laughed.

"Uncle David--gambling! drinking! Oh, Pollee! that's too funny! oh, my!"

Polly laughed, too, out of sympathy.

"Well, you said,--" she began in excuse.

"I didn't say anything of that kind--oh, Polly! No, we aren't worried about Uncle David's habits."

"Well, what is it, then? I'm not going to guess any more."

"I wouldn't," giggled David.

"Anyway I've made you laugh," exulted Polly. "You have been as grave as an owl all the evening."

"Let me tell you--then you won't wonder I'm grave."

"I'll let you all right," Polly chuckled.

David was too seriously troubled to notice.

"It is this way," he went on; "you know how Uncle David has always taken us to ride after supper, either mamma or me alone, or both in the surrey--he has ever since it was mild enough."

"Why, yes, I've gone with you lots of times."

"And now he takes somebody else--a lady, nearly every night!"

"It is too bad," Polly returned plaintively. "We'd love to have you go with us, if we could only go ourselves; but father can't get away, and--"

"Oh, I don't mean that!" David burst out. "It isn't because we're so anxious for a drive; but, Polly, don't you see? If Uncle David is taking a lady out every night, it means something!"

"What does it mean?" queried Polly in a puzzled voice.

"Why, that he is going to be married!"

"O-h!"

"And that means that mamma and I must get out!"

"No, it doesn't!"

"Mamma says so." David's head came down with decision. "Mamma wouldn't stay to be in the way, and, oh, dear! Now you see why we are so worried."

"But how do you know he takes a lady to ride?"

"Because I've seen her."

"Who is it?"

"I can't tell--that's the trouble. We have known he went out alone, but we didn't think much about it till a week or so ago. I'd been up to Archie Howard's, and was coming home through Oregon Avenue,--you know how shady it is up there,--and just along by the Woodruffs' Uncle David whirled past me. I guess I was looking so hard to make sure it was he that I didn't notice the lady much, but it wasn't a man."

"Was that all? That doesn't mean anything! Maybe he just happened to pick her up on her way home. He knows 'most everybody."

"No, he didn't! If he did, he picked her up again two nights afterward, for I was down on Curtis Street, and just before I got to the avenue there they were! They were going like lightning, and I couldn't make out any more than I could before. The lady was on the other side of Uncle David; but I'm sure it was the same one."

"But couldn't he take a lady to ride without marrying her?" asked Polly slowly.

"Why, I suppose some men do," answered David; "but mamma says when a man of his age--who hasn't been round with the ladies for years and years--takes one out evening after evening, it isn't for nothing. And mamma says, of course, when he brings a wife home we can't stay. Oh, I don't know what we shall do! I thought we should live here with Uncle David always. It is making mamma just sick. I know she keeps thinking of those dreadful years before he made up, and if we've got to go back to them again!"

"I wouldn't worry," soothed Polly. "Maybe it isn't anything at all. I don't b'lieve he'll get married. If he'd been going to, he'd have done it before he got so old."

"He isn't very old. He's only a little over fifty."

"That's old to get married, isn't it?"

"Oh, I don't know!" replied David absently.

"Well, I shall be married before I'm fifty," announced Polly decidedly.

David laughed.

"Who you going to marry?" he chuckled.

"Why, of course I don't know yet," she responded; "but I shan't wait till I'm fifty years old."

"No, I guess you won't," he agreed.

The sound of light hoofs speeding down the street turned the attention from the weighty subject of marriage back to the Colonel himself.

"That isn't he, it's a little man," observed Polly.