"Do I, Aunt Polly?" asked the little girl, ruefully. "And does it
plague you? I don't mean to plague you, honestly, Aunt Polly. And,
anyway, if I do plague you about those Ladies' Aiders, you can be kind
o' glad, for if I'm thinking of the Aiders, I'm sure to be thinking
how glad I am that I don't belong to them any longer, but have got an
aunt all my own. You can be glad of that, can't you, Aunt Polly?"

"Yes, yes, dear, of course I can, of course I can," laughed Mrs.
Chilton, rising to leave the room, and feeling suddenly very guilty
that she was conscious sometimes of a little of her old irritation
against Pollyanna's perpetual gladness.

During the next few days, while letters concerning Pollyanna's winter
stay in Boston were flying back and forth, Pollyanna herself was
preparing for that stay by a series of farewell visits to her
Beldingsville friends.

Everybody in the little Vermont village knew Pollyanna now, and almost
everybody was playing the game with her. The few who were not, were
not refraining because of ignorance of what the glad game was. So to
one house after another Pollyanna carried the news now that she was
going down to Boston to spend the winter; and loudly rose the clamor
of regret and remonstrance, all the way from Nancy in Aunt Polly's own
kitchen to the great house on the hill where lived John Pendleton.

Nancy did not hesitate to say--to every one except her mistress--that
SHE considered this Boston trip all foolishness, and that for her part
she would have been glad to take Miss Pollyanna home with her to the
Corners, she would, she would; and then Mrs. Polly could have gone to