you weren't living all the
time!"

"Oh, of course I'd be BREATHING all the time I was doing those things,
Aunt Polly, but I wouldn't be living. You breathe all the time you're
asleep, but you aren't living. I mean living--doing the things you want
to do: playing outdoors, reading (to myself, of course), climbing hills,
talking to Mr. Tom in the garden, and Nancy, and finding out all about
the houses and the people and everything everywhere all through the
perfectly lovely streets I came through yesterday. That's what I call
living, Aunt Polly. Just breathing isn't living!"

Miss Polly lifted her head irritably.

"Pollyanna, you ARE the most extraordinary child! You will be allowed a
proper amount of playtime, of course. But, surely, it seems to me if
I am willing to do my duty in seeing that you have proper care and
instruction, YOU ought to be willing to do yours by seeing that that
care and instruction are not ungratefully wasted."

Pollyanna looked shocked.

"Oh, Aunt Polly, as if I ever could be ungrateful--to YOU! Why, I LOVE
YOU--and you aren't even a Ladies' Aider; you're an aunt!"

"Very well; then see that you don't act ungrateful," vouchsafed Miss
Polly, as she turned toward the door.

She had gone halfway down the stairs when a small, unsteady voice called
after her:

"Please, Aunt Polly, you didn't tell me which of my things you wanted
to--to give away."

Aunt Polly emitted a tired sigh--a sigh that ascended straight to
Pollyanna's ears.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you, Pollyanna. Timothy will drive us into town
at half-past one this afternoon. Not one of your garments is fit for my
niece to wear. Certainly I should be very far from doing my duty by you
if I should let you appear out in any one of them."

Pollyanna sighed now--she believed she was going to hate that
word--duty.

"Aunt Polly, please," she called wistfully, "isn't there ANY way you can
be glad about all that--duty business?"

"What?" Miss Polly looked up in dazed surprise; then, suddenly, with
very red cheeks, she turned and swept angrily down the stairs. "Don't be
impertinent, Pollyanna!"

In the hot little attic room Pollyanna dropped herself on to one of the
straight-backed chairs. To her, existence loomed ahead one endless round
of duty.

"I don't see, really, what there was impertinent about that," she
sighed. "I was only asking her if she couldn't tell me something to be
glad about in all that duty business."

For sever