Page:The history of Mr. Polly.djvu/122

 Mr. Polly admitted the fact, and she said she did too.

“All my people are in India,” she explained. “It’s beastly rot—I mean it’s frightfully dull being left here alone.”

“All my people,” said Mr. Polly, “are in Heaven!”

“I say!”

“Fact!” said Mr. Polly. “Got nobody.”

“And that’s why” she checked her artless comment on his mourning. “I say,” she said in a sympathetic voice, “I am sorry. I really am. Was it a fire or a ship—or something?”

Her sympathy was very delightful. He shook his head. “The ordinary table of mortality,” he said. “First one and then another.”

Behind his outward melancholy, delight was dancing wildly. “Are you lonely?” asked the girl.

Mr. Polly nodded.

“I was just sitting there in melancholy rectrospectatiousness,” he said, indicating the logs, and again a swift thoughtfulness swept across her face.

“There’s no harm in our talking,” she reflected.

“It’s a kindness. Won’t you get down?”

She reflected, and surveyed the turf below and the scene around and him.

“I’ll stay on the wall,” she said. “If only for bounds’ sake.”

She certainly looked quite adorable on the wall. She had a fine neck and pointed chin that was particularly admirable from below, and pretty eyes and fine eyebrows