"Oh, Nancy, I'm so glad--glad--glad! You don't know how glad I am that Aunt Polly--wants me!"

"As if I'd leave her now!" thought Pollyanna, as she climbed the stairs to her room a little later. "I always knew I wanted to live with Aunt Polly--but I reckon maybe I didn't know quite how much I wanted Aunt Polly--to want to live with ME!"

The task of telling John Pendleton of her decision would not be an easy one, Pollyanna knew, and she dreaded it. She was very fond of John Pendleton, and she was very sorry for him--because he seemed to be so sorry for himself. She was sorry, too, for the long, lonely life that had made him so unhappy; and she was grieved that it had been because of her mother that he had spent those dreary years. She pictured the great gray house as it would be after its master was well again, with its silent rooms, its littered floors, its disordered desk; and her heart ached for his loneliness. She wished that somewhere, some one might be found who--And it was at this point that she sprang to her feet with a little cry of joy at the thought that had come to her.