Miss Polly evidently read the pause aright, for she frowned and
said crisply:

"No, I shall not go. It is not necessary that I should, I think.
That is all." And she turned away--Miss Polly's arrangements for
the comfort of her niece, Pollyanna, were complete.

In the kitchen, Nancy sent her flatiron with a vicious dig across
the dish-towel she was ironing.

" 'Light hair, red-checked gingham dress, and straw hat'--all she
knows, indeed! Well, I'd be ashamed ter own it up, that I would,
I would--and her my onliest niece what was a-comin' from 'way
across the continent!"

Promptly at twenty minutes to four the next afternoon Timothy and
Nancy drove off in the open buggy to meet the expected guest.
Timothy was Old Tom's son. It was sometimes said in the town that
if Old Tom was Miss Polly's right-hand man, Timothy was her left.

Timothy was a good-natured youth, and a good-looking one, as
well. Short as had been Nancy's stay at the house, the two were
already good friends. To-day, however, Nancy was too full of her
mission to be her usual talkative self; and almost in silence she
took the drive to the station and alighted to wait for the train.

Over and over in her mind she was saying it "light hair,
red-checked dress, straw hat." Over and over again she was
wondering just what sort of child this Pollyanna was, anyway.