Pollyanna caught her breath audibly.

"You did? And you knew my mother, really--when she was just a
little earth angel, and not a Heaven one? Oh, please tell me
about her!" And down plumped Pollyanna in the middle of the dirt
path by the old man's side.

A bell sounded from the house. The next moment Nancy was seen
flying out the back door.

"Miss Pollyanna, that bell means breakfast--mornin's," she
panted, pulling the little girl to her feet and hurrying her back
to the house; "and other times it means other meals. But it
always means that you're ter run like time when ye hear it, no
matter where ye be. If ye don't--well, it'll take somethin'
smarter'n we be ter find ANYTHIN' ter be glad about in that!" she
finished, shooing Pollyanna into the house as she would shoo an
unruly chicken into a coop.

Breakfast, for the first five minutes, was a silent meal; then
Miss Polly, her disapproving eyes following the airy wings of two
flies darting here and there over the table, said sternly:

"Nancy, where did those flies come from?"

"I don't know, ma'am. There wasn't one in the kitchen." Nancy had
been too excited to notice Pollyanna's up-flung windows the
afternoon before.

"I reckon maybe they're my flies, Aunt Polly," observed