should be so generous as to give a party to everybody, continued on
her way. At the turn of the path she came upon a small girl and a doll
carriage. She stopped with a glad little cry, but she had not said a
dozen words before from somewhere came a young woman with hurrying
steps and a disapproving voice; a young woman who held out her hand to
the small girl, and said sharply:

"Here, Gladys, Gladys, come away with me. Hasn't mama told you not to
talk to strange children?"

"But I'm not strange children," explained Pollyanna in eager defense.
"I live right here in Boston, now, and--" But the young woman and the
little girl dragging the doll carriage were already far down the path;
and with a half-stifled sigh Pollyanna fell back. For a moment she
stood silent, plainly disappointed; then resolutely she lifted her
chin and went forward.

"Well, anyhow, I can be glad for that," she nodded to herself, "for
now maybe I'll find somebody even nicer--Susie Smith, perhaps, or even
Mrs. Carew's Jamie. Anyhow, I can IMAGINE I'm going to find them; and
if I don't find THEM, I can find SOMEBODY!" she finished, her wistful
eyes on the self-absorbed people all about her.

Undeniably Pollyanna was lonesome. Brought up by her father and the
Ladies' Aid Society in a small Western town, she had counted every
house in the village her home, and every man, woman, and child her
friend. Coming to her aunt in Vermont at eleven years of age, she had
promptly assumed that conditions would differ only in that the homes
and the friends would be new, and therefore even more delightful,
possibly, for they would be "different"--and Pollyanna did so love