POLLYANNA
for boys and older folks in the last two or three barrels; and—did you ever have a missionary barrel, Aunt Polly?"
At her aunt's look of shocked anger, Pollyanna corrected herself at once.
"Why, no, of course you didn't, Aunt Polly!" she hurried on, with a hot blush. "I forgot; rich folks never have to have them. But you see sometimes I kind of forget that you are rich—up here in this room, you know."
Miss Polly's lips parted indignantly, but no words came. Pollyanna, plainly unaware that she had said anything in the least unpleasant, was hurrying on.
"Well, as I was going to say, you can't tell a thing about missionary barrels—except that you won't find in 'em what you think you're going to—even when you think you won't. It was the barrels every time, too, that were hardest to play the game on, for father and—"
Just in time Pollyanna remembered that she was not to talk of her father to her aunt. She dived into her closet then, hurriedly, and brought out all the poor little dresses in both her arms.
"They aren't nice, at all," she choked, "and they'd been black if it hadn't been for the red carpet for the church; but they're all I've got."
50
