, sharply, "there is one thing
that might just as well be understood right away at once; and that is, I
do not care to have you keep talking of your father to me."

The little girl drew in her breath tremulously.

"Why, Aunt Polly, you--you mean--" She hesitated, and her aunt filled
the pause.

"We will go up-stairs to your room. Your trunk is already there, I
presume. I told Timothy to take it up--if you had one. You may follow
me, Pollyanna."

Without speaking, Pollyanna turned and followed her aunt from the room.
Her eyes were brimming with tears, but her chin was bravely high.

"After all, I--I reckon I'm glad she doesn't want me to talk about
father," Pollyanna was thinking. "It'll be easier, maybe--if I don't
talk about him. Probably, anyhow, that is why she told me not to talk
about him." And Pollyanna, convinced anew of her aunt's "kindness,"
blinked off the tears and looked eagerly about her.

She was on the stairway now. Just ahead, her aunt's black silk skirt
rustled luxuriously. Behind her an open door allowed a glimpse of
soft-tinted rugs and satin-covered chairs. Beneath her feet a marvellous
carpet was like green moss to the tread. On every side the gilt of
picture frames or the glint of sunlight through the filmy mesh of lace
curtains flashed in her eyes.

"Oh, Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly," breathed the little girl, rapturously;
"what a perfectly lovely, lovely house! How awfully glad you must be
you're so rich!"

"PollyANNA!" ejaculated her aunt, turning sharply about as she reached
the head of the stairs. "I'm surprised at you--making a speech like that
to me!"

"Why, Aunt Polly, AREN'T you?" queried Pollyanna, in frank wonder.

"Certainly not, Pollyanna. I hope I could not so far forget myself as to
be sinfully proud of any gift the Lord has seen fit to bestow upon me,"
declared the lady; "certainly not, of RICHES!"

Miss Polly turned and walked down the hall toward the attic stairway
door. She was glad, now, that she had put the child in the attic room.
Her idea at first had been to get her niece as far away as possible from
herself, and at the same time place her where her childish heedlessness
would not destroy valuable furnishings. Now--with this evident strain of
vanity showing thus early--it was all the more fortunate that the room
planned for her was plain and sensible, thought Miss Polly.

Eagerly Pollyanna's small feet pattered behind her aunt. Still more
eagerly her big blue eyes t