when he grows up, I mean," she finished with a merry glance at the big six-foot fellow still standing before Mrs. Carew.
Everybody laughed again—that is, everybody but Jamie; and only Sadie Dean noticed that Jamie, instead of laughing, closed his eyes as if at the sight of something that hurt. And only Sadie Dean knew how—and why—the subject was so quickly changed, for it was Sadie herself who changed it. It was Sadie, too, who, when the opportunity came, saw to it that books and flowers and beasts and birds—things that Jamie knew and understood—were talked about as well as dams and bridges which (as Sadie knew), Jamie could never build. That Sadie did all this, however, was not realized by anybody, least of all by Jamie, the one who most of all was concerned.
When the call was over and the Pendletons had gone, Mrs. Carew referred again to the curiously haunting feeling that somewhere she had seen young Pendleton before.
"I have, I know I have—somewhere," she declared musingly. "Of course it may have been in Boston; but—" She let the sentence remain unfinished; then, after a minute she added: "He's a fine young fellow, anyway. I like him."
"I'm so glad! I do, too," nodded Pollyanna. "I've always liked Jimmy."
"You've known him some time, then?" queried Jamie, a little wistfully.
"Oh, yes. I knew him years ago when I was a little girl, you know. He was Jimmy Bean then."
