I'm glad that I did not dissolve, however, before what followed
happened, for in the twinkling of two bare feet I was smothered in the
embrace of Henrietta, who in her rush brought either the Pup or the Kit,
I can't tell which yet, along to help her enfold me.
"I'll come stay with you forever, and we don't need no men! Don't
like 'em no-how!" she was exclaiming down my back, when a drawl from the
doorway made us all turn in that direction.
"Why, Henrietta, my own, can it be you who utter such cruel sentiments
in my absence?" and Polk Hayes lounged into the room, with the same
daring listlessness that he had used in trying to hold me in his arms
out on the porch the night I had said good-by to him and Glendale, four
years ago.
Henrietta's chubby little body gave a wriggle of delight, and much
sentiment beamed in her rugged, small face, as she answered him with
enthusiasm, though not stopping to couch her reply in exactly
complimentary terms.
"You don't count, Pokie," she exclaimed, as she made a good-natured face
at him.
"That's what Evelina said four years ago--and she has proved it," he
answered her, looking at me just exactly as if he had never left off
doing it since that last dance.
"How lovely to find you in the same exuberant spirits in which I left
you, Polk, dear," I exclaimed, as I got up to go and shake hands with
him, as he had sunk into the most comfortable chair in the room, without
troubling to bestow that attention upon me.
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