g before, and she had dreaded
it. She had wondered how she should answer it--how she could answer it
honestly without cruelly hurting the questioner. But now, NOW, in
the face of the new suspicions that had become convictions by the
afternoon's umbrella-sending--Nancy only welcomed the question with open
arms. She was sure that, with a clean conscience to-day, she could set
the love-hungry little girl's heart at rest.

"Likes ter have ye here? Would she miss ye if ye wa'n't here?" cried
Nancy, indignantly. "As if that wa'n't jest what I was tellin' of ye!
Didn't she send me posthaste with an umbrella 'cause she see a little
cloud in the sky? Didn't she make me tote yer things all down-stairs, so
you could have the pretty room you wanted? Why, Miss Pollyanna, when ye
remember how at first she hated ter have--"

With a choking cough Nancy pulled herself up just in time.

"And it ain't jest things I can put my fingers on, neither," rushed on
Nancy, breathlessly. "It's little ways she has, that shows how you've
been softenin' her up an' mellerin' her down--the cat, and the dog, and
the way she speaks ter me, and oh, lots o' things. Why, Miss Pollyanna,
there ain't no tellin' how she'd miss ye--if ye wa'n't here," finished
Nancy, speaking with an enthusiastic certainty that was meant to hide
the perilous admission she had almost made before. Even then she was not
quite prepared for the sudden joy that illumined Pollyanna's face.

"Oh, Nancy, I'm so glad--glad--glad! You don't know how glad I am that
Aunt Polly--wants me!"

"As if I'd leave her now!" thought Pollyanna, as she climbed the stairs
to her room a little later. "I always knew I wanted to live with Aunt
Polly--but I reckon maybe I didn't know quite how much I wanted Aunt
Polly--to want to live with ME!"

The task of telling John Pendleton of her decision would not be an
easy one, Pollyanna knew, and she dreaded it. She was very fond of John
Pendleton, and she was very sorry for him--because he seemed to be so
sorry for himself. She was sorry, too, for the long, lonely life that
had made him so unhappy; and she was grieved that it had been because of
her mother that he had spent those dreary years. She pictured the great
gray house as it would be after its master was well again, with its
silent rooms, its littered floors, its disordered desk; and her heart
ached for his loneliness. She wished that somewhere, some one might be
found who--And it was at this point