Page:Pollyanna Grows Up.djvu/20

4 till we do find him—or die. But this sort of thing doesn't help."

"But I don't want to do—anything else," murmured Ruth Carew, drearily.

For a moment there was silence. The younger woman sat regarding her sister with troubled, disapproving eyes.

"Ruth," she said, at last, with a touch of exasperation, "forgive me, but—are you always going to be like this? You're widowed, I'll admit; but your married life lasted only a year, and your husband was much older than yourself. You were little more than a child at the time, and that one short year can't seem much more than a dream now. Surely that ought not to embitter your whole life!"

"No, oh, no," murmured Mrs. Carew, still drearily.

"Then are you going to be always like this?"

"Well, of course, if I could find Jamie—"

"Yes, yes, I know; but, Ruth, dear, isn't there anything in the world but Jamie—to make you any happy?"

"There doesn't seem to be, that I can think of," sighed Mrs. Carew, indifferently.

"Ruth!" ejaculated her sister, stung into something very like anger. Then suddenly she laughed. "Oh, Ruth, Ruth, I'd like to give you a dose of Pollyanna. I don't know any one who needs it more!"

Mrs. Carew stiffened a little.

"Well, what pollyanna may be I don't know, but whatever it is, I don't want it," she retorted sharply, nettled in her turn. "This isn't your beloved