Eleanor H. Porter: Pollyanna

10. CHAPTER X. A SURPRISE FOR MRS. SNOW (continued)

"PLANNING on them!" interrupted Miss Polly, sharply.

Pollyanna blushed still more painfully.

"I ought not to have, of course, Aunt Polly," she apologized. "It was only because I'd always wanted them and hadn't had them, I suppose. Oh, we'd had two rugs in the barrels, but they were little, you know, and one had ink spots, and the other holes; and there never were only those two pictures; the one fath--I mean the good one we sold, and the bad one that broke. Of course if it hadn't been for all that I shouldn't have wanted them, so--pretty things, I mean; and I shouldn't have got to planning all through the hall that first day how pretty mine would be here, and--and But, truly, Aunt Polly, it wasn't but just a minute--I mean, a few minutes--before I was being glad that the bureau DIDN'T have a looking-glass, because it didn't show my freckles; and there couldn't be a nicer picture than the one out my window there; and you've been so good to me, that--"

Miss Polly rose suddenly to her feet. Her face was very red.

"That will do, Pollyanna," she said stiffly.

"You have said quite enough, I'm sure." The next minute she had swept down the stairs--and not until she reached the first floor did it suddenly occur to her that she had gone up into the attic to find a white wool shawl in the cedar chest near the east window.

Less than twenty-four hours later, Miss Polly said to Nancy, crisply:

"Nancy, you may move Miss Pollyanna's things down-stairs this morning to the room directly beneath. I have decided to have my niece sleep there for the present."

"Yes, ma'am," said Nancy aloud.

"O glory!" said Nancy to herself.

To Pollyanna, a minute later, she cried joyously: