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The man smiled grimly. There, there, child, I beg your pardon, Im sure; its only this confounded leg of mine. Now listen. He paused, and with some difficulty reached his hand into his trousers pocket and brought out a bunch of keys, singling out one between his thumb and forefinger. Straight through the path there, about five minutes walk, is my house. This key will admit you to the side door under the porte-cochère. Do you know what a porte-cochère is? Oh, yes, sir. Auntie has one with a sun parlor over it. Thats the roof I slept ononly I didnt sleep, you know. They found me. Eh? Oh! Well, when you get into the house, go straight through the vestibule and hall to the door at the end. On the big, flat-topped desk in the middle of the room youll find a telephone. Do you know how to use a telephone? Oh, yes, sir! Why, once when Aunt Polly Never mind Aunt Polly now, cut in the man scowlingly, as he tried to move himself a little. Hunt up Dr. Thomas Chiltons number on the card youll find somewhere around thereit ought to be on the hook down at the side, but it probably wont be. You know a telephone card, I suppose, when you see one! Oh, yes, sir! I just love Aunt Pollys. Theres such a lot of queer names, and Tell Dr. Chilton that John Pendleton is at the foot of Little Eagle Ledge in Pendleton Woods with a broken leg, and to come at once with a stretcher and two men. Hell know what to do besides that. Tell him to come by the path from the house. A broken leg? Oh, Mr. Pendleton, how perfectly awful! shuddered Pollyanna. But Im so glad I came! Cant I do Yes, you canbut evidently you wont! Will you go and do what I ask and stop talking, moaned the man, faintly. And, with a little sobbing cry, Pollyanna went. Pollyanna did not stop now to look up at the patches of blue between the sunlit tops of the trees. She kept her eyes on the ground to make sure that no twig nor stone tripped her hurrying feet. It was not long before she came in sight of the house. She had seen it before, though never so near as this. She was almost frightened now at the massiveness of the great pile of gray stone with its pillared verandas and its imposing entrance. Pausing only a moment, however, she sped across the big neglected lawn and around the house to the side door under the porte-cochère. Her fingers, stiff from their tight clutch upon the keys, were anything but skilful in their efforts to turn the bolt in the lock; but at last the heavy, carved door swung slowly back on its hinges. Pollyanna caught her breath. In spite of her feeling of haste, she paused a moment and looked fearfully through the vestibule to the wide, sombre hall beyond, her thoughts in a whirl. This was John Pendletons house; the house of mystery; the house into which no one but its master entered; the house which sheltered, somewherea skeleton. Yet she, Pollyanna, was expected to enter alone these fearsome rooms, and telephone the, doctor that the master of the house lay now With a little cry Pollyanna, looking neither to the right nor the left, fairly ran through the hall to the door at the end and opened it. The room was large, and sombre with dark woods and hangings like the hall; but through the west window the sun threw a long shaft of gold across the floor, gleamed dully on the tarnished brass andirons in the |
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