Page 97 - pollyanna

CHAPTER XII. BEFORE

THE LADIES’ AID

inner, which came at noon in the Harrington home-
Dstead, was a silent meal on the day of the Ladies’ Aid
meeting. Pollyanna, it is true, tried to talk; but she did not
make a success of it, chiefly because four times she was
obliged to break off a ‘glad’ in the middle of it, much to her
blushing discomfort. The fifth time it happened, Miss Polly
moved her head wearily.
‘There, there, child, say it, if you want to,’ she sighed. ‘I’m
sure I’d rather you did than not if it’s going to make all this
fuss.’
Pollyanna’s puckered little face cleared.
‘Oh, thank you. I’m afraid it would be pretty hard—not
to say it. You see I’ve played it so long.’
‘You’ve—what?’ demanded Aunt Polly.
‘Played it—the game, you know, that father—‘ Pollyan-
na stopped with a painful blush at finding herself so soon
again on forbidden ground.
Aunt Polly frowned and said nothing. The rest of the
meal was a silent one.
Pollyanna was not sorry to hear Aunt Polly tell the min-
ister’s wife over the telephone, a little later, that she would
not be at the Ladies’ Aid meeting that afternoon, owing to a

Pollyanna