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222 waif of the streets, you know, with his talents; and the wonderful way he has responded to teaching and training proves it."

"Of course," nodded Pollyanna. "And as long as you love him so well, it doesn't really matter, anyway, does it, whether he's the real Jamie or not?"

Mrs. Carew hesitated. Into her eyes crept the old somberness of heartache.

"Not so far as he is concerned," she sighed, at last. "It's only that sometimes I get to thinking: if he isn't our Jamie, where is—Jamie Kent? Is he well? Is he happy? Has he any one to love him? When I get to thinking like that, Pollyanna, I'm nearly wild. I'd give—everything I have in the world, it seems to me, to really know that this boy is Jamie Kent."

Pollyanna used to think of this conversation sometimes, in her after talks with Jamie. Jamie was so sure of himself.

"It's just somehow that I feel it's so," he said once to Pollyanna. "I believe I am Jamie Kent. I've believed it quite a while. I'm afraid I've believed it so long now, that—that I just couldn't bear it, to find out I wasn't he. Mrs. Carew has done so much for me; just think if, after all, I were only a stranger!"

"But she—loves you, Jamie."

"I know she does—and that would only hurt all the more—don't you see?—because it would be hurting her. She wants me to be the real Jamie. I know she does. Now if I could only do something for her—make her proud of me in some way! If I could only do something to support myself, even, like