al reward of merit. No wonder Miss
Polly was feeling curiously helpless.

CHAPTER VIII. POLLYANNA PAYS A VISIT

It was not long before life at the Harrington homestead settled into
something like order--though not exactly the order that Miss Polly had
at first prescribed. Pollyanna sewed, practised, read aloud, and studied
cooking in the kitchen, it is true; but she did not give to any of these
things quite so much time as had first been planned. She had more time,
also, to "just live," as she expressed it, for almost all of every
afternoon from two until six o'clock was hers to do with as she
liked--provided she did not "like" to do certain things already
prohibited by Aunt Polly.

It is a question, perhaps, whether all this leisure time was given to
the child as a relief to Pollyanna from work--or as a relief to Aunt
Polly from Pollyanna. Certainly, as those first July days passed, Miss
Polly found occasion many times to ejaculate "What an extraordinary
child!" and certainly the reading and sewing lessons found her at their
conclusion each day somewhat dazed and wholly exhausted.

Nancy, in the kitchen, fared better. She was not dazed nor exhausted.
Wednesdays and Saturdays came to be, indeed, red-letter days to her.

There were no children in the immediate neighborhood of the Harrington
homestead for Pollyanna to play with. The house itself was on the
outskirts of the village, and though there were other houses not far
away, they did not chance to contain any boys or girls near Pollyanna's
age. This, however, did not seem to disturb Pollyanna in the least.

"Oh, no, I don't mind it at all," she explained to Nancy. "I'm happy
just to walk around and see the streets and the houses and watch the
people. I just love people. Don't you, Nancy?"

"Well, I can't say I do--all of 'em," retorted Nancy, tersely.

Almost every pleasant afternoon found Pollyanna begging for "an errand
to run," so that she might be off for a walk in one direction or
another; and it was on these walks that frequently she met the Man. To
herself Pollyanna always called him "the Man," no matter if she met a
dozen other men the same day.

The Man often wore a long black coat and a high silk hat--two things
that the "just men" never wore. His face was clean shaven and rather
pale, and his hair, showing below his hat, was somewhat gray. He walked
erect, and rather rapidly, and he was always alone, which made Pollyanna
vaguely sorry for him