word, won't you please consider that--that I'm still talking, and
telling you how much we want and need Pollyanna.

"Hopefully yours,

"DELLA WETHERBY."

"There!" ejaculated Mrs. Chilton, as she laid the letter down. "Did
you ever read such a remarkable letter, or hear of a more
preposterous, absurd request?"

"Well, I'm not so sure," smiled the doctor. "I don't think it's absurd
to want Pollyanna."

"But--but the way she puts it--healing the wound in her sister's
heart, and all that. One would think the child was some sort of--of
medicine!"

The doctor laughed outright, and raised his eyebrows.

"Well, I'm not so sure but she is, Polly. I ALWAYS said I wished I
could prescribe her and buy her as I would a box of pills; and Charlie
Ames says they always made it a point at the Sanatorium to give their
patients a dose of Pollyanna as soon as possible after their arrival,
during the whole year she was there."

"'Dose,' indeed!" scorned Mrs. Chilton.

"Then--you don't think you'll let her go?"