confronted Miss Polly fearlessly.

"I ain't a beggar, marm, an' I don't want nothin' o' you. I was
cal'latin' ter work, of course, fur my board an' keep. I wouldn't
have come ter your old house, anyhow, if this 'ere girl hadn't
'a' made me, a-tellin' me how you was so good an' kind that you'd
be jest dyin' ter take me in. So, there!" And he wheeled about
and stalked from the room with a dignity that would have been
absurd had it not been so pitiful.

"Oh, Aunt Polly," choked Pollyanna. "Why, I thought you'd be GLAD
to have him here! I'm sure, I should think you'd be glad--"

Miss Polly raised her hand with a peremptory gesture of silence.
Miss Polly's nerves had snapped at last. The "good and kind" of
the boy's words were still ringing in her ears, and the old
helplessness was almost upon her, she knew. Yet she rallied her
forces with the last atom of her will power.

"Pollyanna," she cried sharply, "WILL you stop using that
everlasting word 'glad'! It's 'glad'--'glad'--'glad' from morning
till night until I think I shall grow wild!"

From sheer amazement Pollyanna's jaw dropped.

"Why, Aunt Polly," she breathed, "I should think you'd be glad to
have me gl--Oh!" she broke off, clapping her hand to her lips and
hurrying blindly from the room.

Before the boy had reached the end of the driveway, Pollyanna