But Mrs. Carew, with a despairing gesture, merely turned away without a word.
It was the day after Christmas that something so wonderful happened that Pollyanna, for a time, almost forgot Jamie. Mrs. Carew had taken her shopping, and it was while Mrs. Carew was trying to decide between a duchesse-lace and a point-lace collar, that Pollyanna chanced to spy farther down the counter a face that looked vaguely familiar. For a moment she regarded it frowningly; then, with a little cry, she ran down the aisle.
"Oh, it's you—it is you!" she exclaimed joyously to a girl who was putting into the show case a tray of pink bows. "I'm so glad to see you!"
The girl behind the counter lifted her head and stared at Pollyanna in amazement. But almost immediately her dark, somber face lighted with a smile of glad recognition.
"Well, well, if it isn't my little Public Garden kiddie!" she ejaculated.
"Yes. I'm so glad you remembered," beamed Pollyanna. "But you never came again. I looked for you lots of times."
"I couldn't. I had to work. That was our last half-holiday, and— Fifty cents, madam," she broke off, in answer to a sweet-faced old lady's question as to the price of a black-and-white bow on the counter.
"Fifty cents? Hm-m!" The old lady fingered the bow, hesitated, then laid it down with a sigh. "Hm, yes; well, it's very pretty, I'm sure, my dear," she said, as she passed on.
