" he asked with an odd smile.

His visitor looked distressed.

"N-no, sir." She hesitated, then went on with heightened color. "Please,
Mr. Pendleton, I didn't mean to be rude the other day when I said Aunt
Polly did NOT send the jelly."

There was no answer. John Pendleton was not smiling now. He was looking
straight ahead of him with eyes that seemed to be gazing through and
beyond the object before them. After a time he drew a long sigh and
turned to Pollyanna. When he spoke his voice carried the old nervous
fretfulness.

"Well, well, this will never do at all! I didn't send for you to see
me moping this time. Listen! Out in the library--the big room where the
telephone is, you know--you will find a carved box on the lower shelf of
the big case with glass doors in the corner not far from the fireplace.
That is, it'll be there if that confounded woman hasn't 'regulated'
it to somewhere else! You may bring it to me. It is heavy, but not too
heavy for you to carry, I think."

"Oh, I'm awfully strong," declared Pollyanna, cheerfully, as she sprang
to her feet. In a minute she had returned with the box.

It was a wonderful half-hour that Pollyanna spent then. The box was
full of treasures--curios that John Pendleton had picked up in years of
travel--and concerning each there was some entertaining story, whether
it were a set of exquisitely carved chessmen from China, or a little
jade idol from India.

It was after she had heard the story about the idol that Pollyanna
murmured wistfully:

"Well, I suppose it WOULD be better to take a little boy in India to
bring up--one that didn't know any more than to think that God was in
that doll-thing--than it would be to take Jimmy Bean, a little boy who
knows God is up in the sky. Still, I can't help wishing they had wanted
Jimmy Bean, too, besides the India boys."

John Pendleton did not seem to hear. Again his, eyes were staring
straight before him, looking at nothing. But soon he had roused himself,
and had picked up another curio to talk about.

The visit, certainly, was a delightful one, but before it was over,
Pollyanna was realizing that they were talking about something besides
the wonderful things in the beautiful carved box. They were talking
of herself, of Nancy, of Aunt Polly, and of her daily life. They were
talking, too, even of the life and home long ago in the far Western
town.

Not until it was nearly time for her to go, did the man say, in a voice
P