“Well, really!” she ejaculated then, in not quite an agreeable tone of voice.

“And now I’ll tell you the game,” proposed Pollyanna, blithely confident.  “It’ll be just lovely for you to play—­it’ll be so hard.  And there’s so much more fun when it is hard!  You see, it’s like this.”  And she began to tell of the missionary barrel, the crutches, and the doll that did not come.

The story was just finished when Milly appeared at the door.

“Your aunt is wanting you, Miss Pollyanna,” she said with dreary listlessness.  “She telephoned down to the Harlows’ across the way.  She says you’re to hurry—­that you’ve got some practising to make up before dark.”

Pollyanna rose reluctantly.

“All right,” she sighed.  “I’ll hurry.”  Suddenly she laughed.  “I suppose I ought to be glad I’ve got legs to hurry with, hadn’t I, Mrs. Snow?”

There was no answer.  Mrs. Snow’s eyes were closed.  But Milly, whose eyes were wide open with surprise, saw that there were tears on the wasted cheeks.

“Good-by,” flung Pollyanna over her shoulder, as she reached the door.  “I’m awfully sorry about the hair—­I wanted to do it.  But maybe I can next time!”

One by one the July days passed.  To Pollyanna, they were happy days, indeed.  She often told her aunt, joyously, how very happy they were.  Whereupon her aunt would usually reply, wearily: 

“Very well, Pollyanna.  I am gratified, of course, that they are happy; but I trust that they are profitable, as well—­otherwise I should have failed signally in my duty.”

Generally Pollyanna would answer this with a hug and a kiss—­a proceeding that was still always most disconcerting to Miss Polly; but one day she spoke.  It was during the sewing hour.

“Do you mean that it wouldn’t be enough then, Aunt Polly, that they should be just happy days?” she asked wistfully.

“That is what I mean, Pollyanna.”

“They must be pro-fi-ta-ble as well?”

“Certainly.”

“What is being pro-fi-ta-ble?”

“Why, it—­it’s just being profitable—­having profit, something to show for it, Pollyanna.  What an extraordinary child you are!”

“Then just being glad isn’t pro-fi-ta-ble?” questioned Pollyanna, a little anxiously.

“Certainly not.”

“O dear!  Then you wouldn’t like it, of course.  I’m afraid, now, you won’t ever play the game, Aunt Polly.”

“Game?  What game?”

“Why, that father—­” Pollyanna clapped her hand to her lips.  “N-nothing,” she stammered.  Miss Polly frowned.

“That will do for this morning, Pollyanna,” she said tersely.  And the sewing lesson was over.

It was that afternoon that Pollyanna, coming down from her attic room, met her aunt on the stairway.

“Why, Aunt Polly, how perfectly lovely!” she cried.  “You were coming up to see me!  Come right in.  I love company,” she finished, scampering up the stairs and throwing her door wide open.