It was when Timothy was unloading the trunk that Nancy found an opportunity to mutter low in his ear: 

“Don’t you never say nothin’ ter me again about leavin’, Timothy Durgin.  You couldn’t Hire me ter leave!”

“Leave!  I should say not,” grinned the youth.

“You couldn’t drag me away.  It’ll be more fun here now, with that kid ’round, than movin’-picture shows, every day!”

“Fun!—­fun!” repeated Nancy, indignantly, “I guess it’ll be somethin’ more than fun for that blessed child—­when them two tries ter live tergether; and I guess she’ll be a-needin’ some rock ter fly to for refuge.  Well, I’m a-goin’ ter be that rock, Timothy; I am, I am!” she vowed, as she turned and led Pollyanna up the broad steps.

CHAPTER IV.  THE LITTLE ATTIC ROOM

Miss Polly Harrington did not rise to meet her niece.  She looked up from her book, it is true, as Nancy and the little girl appeared in the sitting-room doorway, and she held out a hand with “duty” written large on every coldly extended finger.

“How do you do, Pollyanna?  I—­” She had no chance to say more.  Pollyanna, had fairly flown across the room and flung herself into her aunt’s scandalized, unyielding lap.

“Oh, Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly, I don’t know how to be glad enough that you let me come to live with you,” she was sobbing.  “You don’t know how perfectly lovely it is to have you and Nancy and all this after you’ve had just the Ladies’ Aid!”

“Very likely—­though I’ve not had the pleasure of the Ladies’ Aid’s acquaintance,” rejoined Miss Polly, stiffly, trying to unclasp the small, clinging fingers, and turning frowning eyes on Nancy in the doorway.  “Nancy, that will do.  You may go.  Pollyanna, be good enough, please, to stand erect in a proper manner.  I don’t know yet what you look like.”

Pollyanna drew back at once, laughing a little hysterically.

“No, I suppose you don’t; but you see I’m not very much to took at, anyway, on account of the freckles.  Oh, and I ought to explain about the red gingham and the black velvet basque with white spots on the elbows.  I told Nancy how father said—­”

“Yes; well, never mind now what your father said,” interrupted Miss Polly, crisply.  “You had a trunk, I presume?”

“Oh, yes, indeed, Aunt Polly.  I’ve got a beautiful trunk that the Ladies’ Aid gave me.  I haven’t got so very much in it—­of my own, I mean.  The barrels haven’t had many clothes for little girls in them lately; but there were all father’s books, and Mrs. White said she thought I ought to have those.  You see, father—­”

“Pollyanna,” interrupted her aunt again, sharply, “there is one thing that might just as well be understood right away at once; and that is, I do not care to have you keep talking of your father to me.”

The little girl drew in her breath tremulously.