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bottle, and don’t want to disturb mamma.”
    “It’s in my closet. Old Tom will pay for his trick this time,” said Fanny, in a satisfied tone.
    “I thought he’d get enough of our candy,” laughed Polly; and then they fell asleep, leaving Tom to the delights of toothache
     and the tender mercies of kind old grandma.

Polly’s Troubles
C HAPTER 3
    P olly soon found that she was in a new world, a world where the manners and customs were so different from the simple ways
     at home, that she felt like a stranger in a strange land, and often wished that she had not come. In the first place, she
     had nothing to do but lounge and gossip, read novels, parade the streets, and dress; and before a week was gone, she was as
     heartily sick of all this, as a healthy person would be who attempted to live on confectionery. Fanny liked it, because she
     was used to it, and had never known anything better; but Polly had, and often felt like a little wood-bird shut up in a gilded
     cage. Nevertheless, she was much impressed by the luxuries all about her, enjoyed them, wished she owned them, and wondered
     why the Shaws were not a happier family. She was not wise enough to know where the trouble lay; she did not attempt to say
     which of the two lives was the right one; she only knew which she liked best, and supposed it was merely another of her “old-fashioned”
     ways.
    Fanny’s friends did not interest her much; she was rather afraid of them, they seemed so much older and wiser than herself,
     even those younger in years. They talked about things of which she knew nothing, and when Fanny tried to explain, she didn’t
     find them interesting; indeed, some of them rather shocked and puzzled her; so the girls let her alone, being civil when they
     met, but evidently feeling that she was too “odd” to belong to their set. Then she turned to Maud for companionship, for her
     own little sister was excellent company, and Polly loved her dearly. But Miss Maud was much absorbed in her own affairs, for
     she belonged to a “set” also; and these mites of five and six had their “musicals,” their parties, receptions, and promenades,
     as well as their elders; and the chief idea of their little lives seemed to be to ape the fashionable follies they should
     have been too innocent to understand. Maud had her tiny card case, and paid calls, “like mamma and Fan”; her box of dainty
     gloves, her jewel drawer, her crimping pins, as fine and fanciful a wardrobe as a Paris doll, and a French maid to dress her.
     Polly couldn’t get on with her at first, for Maud didn’t seem like a child, and often corrected Polly in her conversation
     and manners, though little mademoiselle’s own were anything but perfect. Now and then, when Maud felt poorly, or had a “fwactious”
     turn, for she had “nerves” as well as mamma, she would go to Polly to be “amoosed,” for her gentle ways and kind forbearance
     soothed the little fine lady better than anything else. Polly enjoyed these times, and told stories, played games, or went
     out walking, just as Maud liked, slowly and surely winning the child’s heart, and relieving the whole house of the young tyrant
     who ruled it.
    Tom soon got over staring at Polly, and at first did not take much notice of her, for, in his opinion, “girls didn’t amount
     to much, anyway”; and, considering the style of girl he knew most about, Polly quite agreed with him. He occasionally refreshed
     himself by teasing her, to see how she’d stand it, and caused Polly much anguish of spirit, for she never knew where he would
     take her next. He bounced out at her from behind doors, booed at her in dark entries, clutched her feet as she went upstairs,
     startled her by shrill whistles right in her ear, or sudden tweaks of the hair as he passed her in the street; and as sure
     as there was company to dinner, he fixed his round eyes on her, and never took them off till she was reduced to a piteous
     state