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Rh me—running around the country after this fashion!"

The climax came when one day John Pendleton (and Aunt Polly never ceased to exclaim because it was John Pendleton)—suggested that they all go on a two weeks' camping trip to a little lake up among the mountains forty miles from Beldingsville.

The idea was received with enthusiastic approbation by everybody except Aunt Polly. Aunt Polly said, privately, to Pollyanna, that it was all very good and well and desirable that John Pendleton should have gotten out of the sour, morose aloofness that had been his state for so many years, but that it did not necessarily follow that it was equally desirable that he should be trying to turn himself into a twenty-year-old boy again; and that was what, in her opinion, he seemed to be doing now! Publicly she contented herself with saying coldly that she certainly should not go on any insane camping trip to sleep on damp ground and eat bugs and spiders, under the guise of "fun," nor did she think it a sensible thing for anybody over forty to do.

If John Pendleton felt any wound from this shaft, he made no sign. Certainly there was no diminution of apparent interest and enthusiasm on his part, and the plans for the camping expedition came on apace, for it was unanimously decided that, even if Aunt Polly would not go, that was no reason why the rest should not.

"And Mrs. Carew will be all the chaperon we need, anyhow," Jimmy had declared airily.