Page:Pollyanna Grows Up.djvu/49

Rh "Oh, my, is it yours?" asked Pollyanna, detecting the unmistakable air of ownership in her hostess's manner. "How perfectly lovely! Then you must be rich—awfully—I mean exceedingly rich, more than the kind that just has carpets in every room and ice cream Sundays, like the Whites—one of my Ladies' Aiders, you know. (That is, she was a Ladies' Aider.) I used to think they were rich, but I know now that being really rich means you've got diamond rings and hired girls and sealskin coats, and dresses made of silk and velvet for every day, and an automobile. Have you got all those?"

"Why, y-yes, I suppose I have," admitted Mrs. Carew, with a faint smile.

"Then you are rich, of course," nodded Pollyanna, wisely. "My Aunt Polly has them, too, only her automobile is a horse. My! but don't I just love to ride in these things," exulted Pollyanna, with a happy little bounce. "You see I never did before, except the one that ran over me. They put me in that one after they'd got me out from under it; but of course I didn't know about it, so I couldn't enjoy it. Since then I haven't been in one at all. Aunt Polly doesn't like them. Uncle Tom does, though, and he wants one. He says he's got to have one, in his business. He's a doctor, you know, and all the other doctors in town have got them now. I don't know how it will come out. Aunt Polly is all stirred up over it. You see, she wants Uncle Tom to have what he wants, only she wants him to want what she wants him to want. See?"