Page:Pollyanna Grows Up.djvu/191

Rh "Oh, but I thought you didn't want to know Pollyanna—grown up."

With a grimace the young fellow tossed this aside.

"Is she pretty?"

"Oh, ye young men!" shrugged John Pendleton, in mock despair. "Always the first question—'Is she pretty?'!"

"Well, is she?" insisted the youth.

"I'll let you judge for yourself. If you— On second thoughts, though, I believe I won't. You might be too disappointed. Pollyanna isn't pretty, so far as regular features, curls, and dimples go. In fact, to my certain knowledge the great cross in Pollyanna's life thus far is that she is so sure she isn't pretty. Long ago she told me that black curls were one of the things she was going to have when she got to Heaven; and last year in Rome she said something else. It wasn't much, perhaps, so far as words went, but I detected the longing beneath. She said she did wish that sometime some one would write a novel with a heroine who had straight hair and a freckle on her nose; but that she supposed she ought to be glad girls in books didn't have to have them."

"That sounds like the old Pollyanna."

"Oh, you'll still find her—Pollyanna," smiled the man, quizzically. "Besides, I think she's pretty. Her eyes are lovely. She is the picture of health. She carries herself with all the joyous springiness of youth, and her whole face lights up so wonderfully when she talks that you quite forget whether her features are regular or not"