“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, sympathetically. “But wait—just let me show you,” she exclaimed, skipping over to the bureau and picking up a small hand-glass.

On the way back to the bed she stopped, eyeing the sick woman with a critical gaze.

“I reckon maybe, if you don’t mind, I’d like to fix your hair just a little before I let you see it,” she proposed. “May I fix your hair, please?”

“Why, I—suppose so, if you want to,” permitted Mrs. Snow, grudgingly; “but ’twon’t stay, you know.”

“Oh, thank you. I love to fix people’s hair,” exulted Pollyanna, carefully laying down the hand-glass and reaching for a comb. “I sha’n’t do much today, of course—I’m in such a hurry for you to see how pretty you are; but some day I’m going to take it all down and have a perfectly lovely time with it, she cried, touching with soft fingers the waving hair above the sick woman’s forehead.

For five minutes Pollyanna worked swiftly, deftly, combing a refractory curl into fluffiness, perking up a drooping ruffle at the neck, or shaking a pillow into plumpness so that the head might have a better pose. Meanwhile the sick woman, frowning prodigiously, and openly scoffing at the whole procedure, was, in spite of herself, beginning to tingle with a feeling perilously near to excitement.

“There!” panted Pollyanna, hastily plucking a pink from a vase near by and tucking it into the dark hair where it would give the best effect. “Now I reckon we’re ready to be looked at!” And she held out the mirror in triumph.

“Humph!” grunted the sick woman, eyeing her reflection severely. “I like red pinks better than pink ones; but then, it’ll fade, anyhow, before night, so what’s the difference!”

“But I should think you’d be glad they did fade,” laughed Pollyanna, “ ’cause then you can have the fun of getting some more. I just love your hair fluffed out like that,” she finished with a satisfied gaze. “Don’t you?”

“Hm-m; maybe. Still—’twon’t last, with me tossing back and forth on the pillow as I do.”

“Of course not—and I’m glad, too,” nodded Pollyanna, cheerfully, “because then I can fix it again. Anyhow, I should think you’d be glad it’s black—black shows up so much nicer on a pillow than yellow hair like mine does.”

“Maybe; but I never did set much store by black hair—shows gray too soon,” retorted Mrs. Snow. She spoke fretfully, but she still held the mirror before her face.