Pollyanna cried out in dismay.

“Oh, but Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly, you haven’t left me any time at all just to—­to live.”

“To live, child!  What do you mean?  As if you weren’t living all the time!”

“Oh, of course I’d be breathing all the time I was doing those things, Aunt Polly, but I wouldn’t be living.  You breathe all the time you’re asleep, but you aren’t living.  I mean living—­doing the things you want to do:  playing outdoors, reading (to myself, of course), climbing hills, talking to Mr. Tom in the garden, and Nancy, and finding out all about the houses and the people and everything everywhere all through the perfectly lovely streets I came through yesterday.  That’s what I call living, Aunt Polly.  Just breathing isn’t living!”

Miss Polly lifted her head irritably.

“Pollyanna, you are the most extraordinary child!  You will be allowed a proper amount of playtime, of course.  But, surely, it seems to me if I am willing to do my duty in seeing that you have proper care and instruction, you ought to be willing to do yours by seeing that that care and instruction are not ungratefully wasted.”

Pollyanna looked shocked.

“Oh, Aunt Polly, as if I ever could be ungrateful—­to you!  Why, I love you—­and you aren’t even a Ladies’ Aider; you’re an aunt!”

“Very well; then see that you don’t act ungrateful,” vouchsafed Miss Polly, as she turned toward the door.

She had gone halfway down the stairs when a small, unsteady voice called after her: 

“Please, Aunt Polly, you didn’t tell me which of my things you wanted to—­to give away.”

Aunt Polly emitted a tired sigh—­a sigh that ascended straight to Pollyanna’s ears.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you, Pollyanna.  Timothy will drive us into town at half-past one this afternoon.  Not one of your garments is fit for my niece to wear.  Certainly I should be very far from doing my duty by you if I should let you appear out in any one of them.”

Pollyanna sighed now—­she believed she was going to hate that word—­duty.

“Aunt Polly, please,” she called wistfully, “isn’t there any way you can be glad about all that—­duty business?”

“What?” Miss Polly looked up in dazed surprise; then, suddenly, with very red cheeks, she turned and swept angrily down the stairs.  “Don’t be impertinent, Pollyanna!”

In the hot little attic room Pollyanna dropped herself on to one of the straight-backed chairs.  To her, existence loomed ahead one endless round of duty.

“I don’t see, really, what there was impertinent about that,” she sighed.  “I was only asking her if she couldn’t tell me something to be glad about in all that duty business.”

For several minutes Pollyanna sat in silence, her rueful eyes fixed on the forlorn heap of garments on the bed.  Then, slowly, she rose and began to put away the dresses.