THE LITTLE ATTIC ROOM
For a moment after she had gone Pollyanna stood quite still, looking after her. Then she turned her wide eyes to the bare wall, the bare floor, the bare windows. She turned them last to the little trunk that had stood not so long before in her own little room in the far-away Western home. The next moment she stumbled blindly toward it and fell on her knees at its side, covering her face with her hands.
Nancy found her there when she came up a few minutes later.
"There, there, you poor lamb," she crooned, dropping to the floor and drawing the little girl into her arms. "I was just a-fearin' I'd find you like this, like this."
Pollyanna shook her head.
"But I'm bad and wicked, Nancy—awful wicked," she sobbed. "I just can't make myself understand that God and the angels needed my father more than I did."
"No more they did, neither," declared Nancy, stoutly.
"Oh-h!—Nancy!" The burning horror in Pollyanna's eyes dried the tears.
Nancy gave a shamefaced smile and rubbed her own eyes vigorously.
"There, there, child, I didn't mean it, of course," she cried briskly. "Come, let's have your key and
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