and Mrs. Motherwell,
for your kind thoughtfulness to this poor lonely girl.
"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, ye
have done it unto Me."
Yours cordially,
(Nurse) AGNES HUNT.
"By Jinks."
Sam Motherwell took the letter from his wife's hand and
excitedly read it over to himself, going over each word
with his blunt forefinger. He turned it over and examined
the seal, he looked at the stamp and inside of the
envelope, and failing to find any clue to the mystery he
ejaculated again:
"By Jinks! What the deuce is this about poppies. Is that
them things she sowed out there?"
His wife nodded.
"Well, who do you suppose sent them? Who would ever think
of sending them?"
Mrs. Motherwell made no reply.
"It's a blamed nice letter anyway," he said, looking it
over again, "I guess Polly didn't give us a hard name to
them up there in the 'ospital, or we wouldn't ha' got a
letter like this; and poor Polly's dead. Well, she was
a kind of a good-natured, willin' thing too, and not too
slow either."
Mrs. Motherwell was still silent. She had not thought
that Polly would die, she had always had great faith in
the vitality of English people. "You can't kill them,"
she had often said; but now Polly was dead. She was sick,
then, when she went around the house so strangely silent
and flushed. Mrs. Motherwell's memory went back with
cruel distinctness--she had said things to Polly then
that stung her now with a remorse that was new and
terrible, and Polly had looked at her dazed and wondering,
her big eyes flushed and pleading.
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