Adam sat close while Kate ate her supper, then he helped her
unpack her trunk and hang away her dresses, and then they sat on
the porch talking for a long time.
When at last they arose to go to bed Kate said: "Adam, about
Polly: first time you see her, if she asks, tell her she left
home of her own free will and accord, and in her own way, which,
by the way, happens to be a Holt way; but you needn't mention
that. I think by this time she has learned or soon she will learn
that; and whenever she wants to come back and face me, to come
right ahead. I can stand it if she can. Can you get that
straight?"
Adam said he could. He got that straight and so much else that by
the time he finished, Polly realized that both he and her mother
had left her in the house to try to SHIELD her; that if she had
told what she wanted in a straightforward manner she might have
had a wedding outfit prepared and been married from her home at a
proper time and in a proper way, and without putting her mother to
shame before the community. Polly was very much ashamed of
herself by the time Adam finished. She could not find it in her
heart to blame Henry; she knew he was no more to blame than she
was; but she did store up a grievance against Mr. and Mrs. Peters.
They were older and had had experience with the world; they might
have told Polly what she should do instead of having done
everything in their power to make her do what she had done,
bribing, coaxing, urging, all in the direction of her
inclinations.
At heart Polly was big enough to admit that she had followed her
inclinations without thinking at all what the result would be.
Adam never would have done what she had. Adam would have thought
of his mother and his name and his honour. Poor little Polly had
to admit that honour with her had always been a matter of, "Now
remember," "Be careful," and like caution on the lips of her
mother.
The more Polly thought, the worse she felt. The worse she felt,
the more the whole Peters family tried to comfort her. She was
violently homesick in a few days; but Adam had said she was to
come when she "could face her mother," and Polly suddenly found
that she would rather undertake to run ten miles than to face her
mother, so she began a process of hiding from her. If she sat on
the porch, and saw her mother coming, she ran in the house. She
would go to no public place where she might meet her. For a few
weeks she lived a life of working for Mrs. Peters from dawn to
dark, under the stimulus of what a sweet girl she was, how
splendidly she did things, how fortunate Henry was, interspersed
with continual kissing, patting, and petting, all very new and
unusual to Polly. By that time she was so very ill, she could not
lift her head from the pillow half the day, but it was to the
credit of the badly disappointed Peters family that they kept up
the petting. When Polly grew better, she had no desire to go
anywhere; she worked to make up for the trouble she had been
during her illness, to sew every spare moment, and to do her full
share of the day's work in the house of an excessively nice woman,
whose work never was done, and most hopeless thing of all, never
would be. Mrs. Peters' head was full of things that she meant to
do three years in the future. Every night found Polly so tired
she staggered to bed early as possible; every morning found her
confronting the same round, which from the nature of her condition
every morning was more difficult for her.