Page 65 - pollyanna

‘Well, if you ain’t the amazing young one!’ she cried.
‘Here! do you go to that window and pull up the curtain,’
she directed. ‘I should like to know what you look like!’
Pollyanna rose to her feet, but she laughed a little rue-
fully.
‘O dear! then you’ll see my freckles, won’t you?’ she
sighed, as she went to the window; ‘—and just when I was
being so glad it was dark and you couldn’t see ‘em. There!
Now you can—oh!’ she broke off excitedly, as she turned
back to the bed; ‘I’m so glad you wanted to see me, because
now I can see you! They didn’t tell me you were so pretty!’
‘Me!—pretty!’ scoffed the woman, bitterly.
‘Why, yes. Didn’t you know it?’ cried Pollyanna.
‘Well, no, I didn’t,’ retorted Mrs. Snow, dryly. Mrs. Snow
had lived forty years, and for fifteen of those years she had
been too busy wishing things were different to find much
time to enjoy things as they were.
‘Oh, but your eyes are so big and dark, and your hair’s all
dark, too, and curly,’ cooed Pollyanna. ‘I love black curls.
(That’s one of the things I’m going to have when I get to
Heaven.) And you’ve got two little red spots in your cheeks.
Why, Mrs. Snow, you ARE pretty! I should think you’d
know it when you looked at yourself in the glass.’
‘The glass!’ snapped the sick woman, falling back on her
pillow. ‘Yes, well, I hain’t done much prinkin’ before the
mirror these days—and you wouldn’t, if you was flat on
your back as I am!’
‘Why, no, of course not,’ agreed Pollyanna, sympa-
thetically. ‘But wait—just let me show you,’ she exclaimed,

Pollyanna