"The North End--that child--alone! Pollyanna!" shuddered Mrs. Carew.

"Oh, I wasn't alone, Mrs. Carew," fended Pollyanna. "There were ever
and ever so many people there, weren't there, boy?"

But the boy, with an impish grin, was disappearing through the door.

Pollyanna learned many things during the next half-hour. She learned
that nice little girls do not take long walks alone in unfamiliar
cities, nor sit on park benches and talk to strangers. She learned,
also, that it was only by a "perfectly marvelous miracle" that she had
reached home at all that night, and that she had escaped many, many
very disagreeable consequences of her foolishness. She learned that
Boston was not Beldingsville, and that she must not think it was.

"But, Mrs. Carew," she finally argued despairingly, "I AM here, and I
didn't get lost for keeps. Seems as if I ought to be glad for that
instead of thinking all the time of the sorry things that might have
happened."

"Yes, yes, child, I suppose so, I suppose so," sighed Mrs. Carew; "but
you have given me such a fright, and I want you to be sure, SURE, SURE
never to do it again. Now come, dear, you must be hungry."

It was just as she was dropping off to sleep that night that Pollyanna
murmured drowsily to herself:

"The thing I'm the very sorriest for of anything is that I didn't ask
that boy his name nor where he lived. Now I can't ever say thank you
to him!"