leton, I can't--you know I can't. Why, I'm--Aunt Polly's!"

A quick something crossed the man's face that Pollyanna could not quite
understand. His head came up almost fiercely.

"You're no more hers than--Perhaps she would let you come to me," he
finished more gently. "Would you come--if she did?"

Pollyanna frowned in deep thought.

"But Aunt Polly has been so--good to me," she began slowly; "and she
took me when I didn't have anybody left but the Ladies' Aid, and--"

Again that spasm of something crossed the man's face; but this time,
when he spoke, his voice was low and very sad.

"Pollyanna, long years ago I loved somebody very much. I hoped to bring
her, some day, to this house. I pictured how happy we'd be together in
our home all the long years to come."

"Yes," pitied Pollyanna, her eyes shining with sympathy.

"But--well, I didn't bring her here. Never mind why. I just didn't
that's all. And ever since then this great gray pile of stone has been
a house--never a home. It takes a woman's hand and heart, or a child's
presence, to make a home, Pollyanna; and I have not had either. Now will
you come, my dear?"

Pollyanna sprang to her feet. Her face was fairly illumined.

"Mr. Pendleton, you--you mean that you wish you--you had had that
woman's hand and heart all this time?"

"Why, y-yes, Pollyanna."

"Oh, I'm so glad! Then it's all right," sighed the little girl. "Now you
can take us both, and everything will be lovely."

"Take--you--both?" repeated the man, dazedly.

A faint doubt crossed Pollyanna's countenance.

"Well, of course, Aunt Polly isn't won over, yet; but I'm sure she will
be if you tell it to her just as you did to me, and then we'd both come,
of course."

A look of actual terror leaped to the man's eyes.

"Aunt Polly come--HERE!"

Pollyanna's eyes widened a little.

"Would you rather go THERE?" she asked. "Of course the house isn't quite
so pretty, but it's nearer--"

"Pollyanna, what ARE you talking about?" asked the man, very gently now.

"Why, about where we're going to live, of course," rejoined Pollyanna,
in obvious surprise. "I THOUGHT you meant here, at first. You said it
was here that you had wanted Aunt Polly's hand and heart all these years
to make a home, and--"

An inarticulate cry came from the man's throat. He raised his hand and
began to speak; but the next moment he dropped his hand nervelessly at
his side.

"The doctor, sir," said the maid in the doorwa