of desolation--as of something lost.

CHAPTER XII. BEFORE THE LADIES' AID

Dinner, which came at noon in the Harrington homestead, was a silent
meal on the day of the Ladies' Aid meeting. Pollyanna, it is true, tried
to talk; but she did not make a success of it, chiefly because four
times she was obliged to break off a "glad" in the middle of it, much
to her blushing discomfort. The fifth time it happened, Miss Polly moved
her head wearily.

"There, there, child, say it, if you want to," she sighed. "I'm sure I'd
rather you did than not if it's going to make all this fuss."

Pollyanna's puckered little face cleared.

"Oh, thank you. I'm afraid it would be pretty hard--not to say it. You
see I've played it so long."

"You've--what?" demanded Aunt Polly.

"Played it--the game, you know, that father--" Pollyanna stopped with a
painful blush at finding herself so soon again on forbidden ground.

Aunt Polly frowned and said nothing. The rest of the meal was a silent
one.

Pollyanna was not sorry to hear Aunt Polly tell the minister's wife over
the telephone, a little later, that she would not be at the Ladies'
Aid meeting that afternoon, owing to a headache. When Aunt Polly went
up-stairs to her room and closed the door, Pollyanna tried to be sorry
for the headache; but she could not help feeling glad that her aunt was
not to be present that afternoon when she laid the case of Jimmy Bean
before the Ladies' Aid. She could not forget that Aunt Polly had called
Jimmy Bean a little beggar; and she did not want Aunt Polly to call him
that--before the Ladies' Aid.

Pollyanna knew that the Ladies' Aid met at two o'clock in the chapel
next the church, not quite half a mile from home. She planned her going,
therefore, so that she should get there a little before three.

"I want them all to be there," she said to herself; "else the very one
that wasn't there might be the one who would be wanting to give Jimmy
Bean a home; and, of course, two o'clock always means three, really--to
Ladies' Aiders."

Quietly, but with confident courage, Pollyanna ascended the chapel
steps, pushed open the door and entered the vestibule. A soft babel of
feminine chatter and laughter came from the main room. Hesitating only a
brief moment Pollyanna pushed open one of the inner doors.

The chatter dropped to a surprised hush. Pollyanna advanced a little
timidly. Now that the time had come, she felt unwontedly shy. After all,
these half-