and held them suspended.

"Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly, WERE you the woman's hand and heart he wanted
so long ago? You were--I know you were! And that's what he meant by
saying I'd done the gladdest job of all--to-day. I'm so glad! Why, Aunt
Polly, I don't know but I'm so glad that I don't mind--even my legs,
now!"

Aunt Polly swallowed a sob.

"Perhaps, some day, dear--" But Aunt Polly did not finish. Aunt Polly
did not dare to tell, yet, the great hope that Dr. Chilton had put into
her heart. But she did say this--and surely this was quite wonderful
enough--to Pollyanna's mind:

"Pollyanna, next week you're going to take a journey. On a nice
comfortable little bed you're going to be carried in cars and carriages
to a great doctor who has a big house many miles from here made on
purpose for just such people as you are. He's a dear friend of Dr.
Chilton's, and we're going to see what he can do for you!"

CHAPTER XXXII. WHICH IS A LETTER FROM POLLYANNA

"Dear Aunt Polly and Uncle Tom:--Oh, I can--I can--I CAN walk! I did
to-day all the way from my bed to the window! It was six steps. My, how
good it was to be on legs again!

"All the doctors stood around and smiled, and all the nurses stood
beside of them and cried. A lady in the next ward who walked last week
first, peeked into the door, and another one who hopes she can walk next
month, was invited in to the party, and she laid on my nurse's bed and
clapped her hands. Even Black Tilly who washes the floor, looked through
the piazza window and called me 'Honey, child' when she wasn't crying
too much to call me anything.

"I don't see why they cried. _I_ wanted to sing and shout and yell!
Oh--oh--oh! just think, I can walk--walk--WALK! Now I don't mind being
here almost ten months, and I didn't miss the wedding, anyhow. Wasn't
that just like you, Aunt Polly, to come on here and get married right
beside my bed, so I could see you. You always do think of the gladdest
things!

"Pretty soon, they say, I shall go home. I wish I could walk all the way
there. I do. I don't think I shall ever want to ride anywhere any
more. It will be so good just to walk. Oh, I'm so glad! I'm glad for
everything. Why, I'm glad now I lost my legs for a while, for you never,
never know how perfectly lovely legs are till you haven't got them--that
go, I mean. I'm going to walk eight steps to-morrow.

"With heaps of love to everybody,

"POLLYANNA."

End of the Project Gutenb