Again that spasm of something crossed the man’s face; but this time, when he spoke, his voice was low and very sad.

“Pollyanna, long years ago I loved somebody very much. I hoped to bring her, some day, to this house. I pictured how happy we’d be together in our home all the long years to come.”

“Yes,” pitied Pollyanna, her eyes shining with sympathy.

“But—well, I didn’t bring her here. Never mind why. I just didn’t that’s all. And ever since then this great gray pile of stone has been a house—never a home. It takes a woman’s hand and heart, or a child’s presence, to make a home, Pollyanna; and I have not had either. Now will you come, my dear?”

Pollyanna sprang to her feet. Her face was fairly illumined.

“Mr. Pendleton, you—you mean that you wish you—you had had that woman’s hand and heart all this time?”

“Why, y-yes, Pollyanna.”

“Oh, I’m so glad! Then it’s all right,” sighed the little girl. “Now you can take us both, and everything will be lovely.”

“Take—you—both?” repeated the man, dazedly.

A faint doubt crossed Pollyanna’s countenance.

“Well, of course, Aunt Polly isn’t won over, yet; but I’m sure she will be if you tell it to her just as you did to me, and then we’d both come, of course.”

A look of actual terror leaped to the man’s eyes.

“Aunt Polly come—here!”

Pollyanna’s eyes widened a little.

“Would you rather go there?” she asked. Of course the house isn’t quite so pretty, but it’s nearer—”

“Pollyanna, what are you talking about?” asked the man, very gently now.

“Why, about where we’re going to live, of course,” rejoined Pollyanna, in obvious surprise. “I thought you meant here, at first. You said it was here that you had wanted Aunt Polly’s hand and heart all these years to make a home, and—”

An inarticulate cry came from the man’s throat. He raised his hand and began to speak; but the next moment he dropped his hand nervelessly at his side.

“The doctor, sir,” said the maid in the doorway.

Pollyanna rose at once.

John Pendleton turned to her feverishly.

“Pollyanna, for Heaven’s sake, say nothing of what I asked you—yet,” he begged, in a low voice. Pollyanna dimpled into a sunny smile.

“Of course not! Just as if I didn’t know you’d rather tell her yourself!” she called back merrily over her shoulder.