back. For a moment she stood silent, plainly disappointed; then resolutely she lifted her chin and went forward.
"Well, anyhow, I can be glad for that," she nodded to herself, "for now maybe I'll find somebody even nicer—Susie Smith, perhaps, or even Mrs. Carew's Jamie. Anyhow, I can imagine I'm going to find them; and if I don't find them, I can find somebody!" she finished, her wistful eyes on the self-absorbed people all about her.
Undeniably Pollyanna was lonesome. Brought up by her father and the Ladies' Aid Society in a small Western town, she had counted every house in the village her home, and every man, woman, and child her friend. Coming to her aunt in Vermont at eleven years of age, she had promptly assumed that conditions would differ only in that the homes and the friends would be new, and therefore even more delightful, possibly, for they would be "different"—and Pollyanna did so love "different" things and people! Her first and always her supreme delight in Beldingsville, therefore, had been her long rambles about the town and the charming visits with the new friends she had made. Quite naturally, in consequence, Boston, as she first saw it, seemed to Pollyanna even more delightfully promising in its possibilities.
Thus far, however, Pollyanna had to admit that in one respect, at least, it had been disappointing: she had been here nearly two weeks and she did not yet know the people who lived across the street, or even
