Once again the woman pulled herself erect in her bed.
“Well, if you ain't the amazing young one!” she cried. “Here! do you go to that window and pull up the curtain,” she directed. “I should like to know what you look like!”
Pollyanna rose to her feet, but she laughed a little ruefully.
“O dear! then you'll see my freckles, won't you?” she sighed, as she went to the window; “--and just when I was being so glad it was dark and you couldn't see 'em. There! Now you can--oh!” she broke off excitedly, as she turned back to the bed; “I'm so glad you wanted to see me, because now I can see you! They didn't tell me you were so pretty!”
“Me!--pretty!” scoffed the woman, bitterly.
“Why, yes. Didn't you know it?” cried Pollyanna.
“Well, no, I didn't,” retorted Mrs. Snow, dryly. Mrs. Snow had lived forty years, and for fifteen of those years she had been too busy wishing things were different to find much time to enjoy things as they were.
“Oh, but your eyes are so big and dark, and your hair's all dark, too, and curly,” cooed Pollyanna. “I love black curls. (That's one of the things I'm going to have when I get to Heaven.) And you've got two little red spots in your cheeks. Why, Mrs. Snow, you ARE pretty! I should think you'd know it when you looked at yourself in the glass.”
“The glass!” snapped the sick woman, falling back on her pillow. “Yes, well, I hain't done much prinkin' before the mirror these days--and you wouldn't, if you was flat on your back as I am!”
“Why, no, of course not,” agreed Pollyanna, sympathetically. “But wait--just let me show you,” she exclaimed, skipping over to the bureau and picking up a small hand-glass.
On the way back to the bed she stopped, eyeing the sick woman with a critical gaze.
“I reckon maybe, if you don't mind, I'd like to fix your hair just a little before I let you see it,” she proposed. “May I fix your hair, please?”
“Why, I--suppose so, if you want to,” permitted Mrs. Snow, grudgingly; “but 'twon't stay, you know.”
“Oh, thank you. I love to fix people's hair,” exulted Pollyanna, carefully laying down the hand-glass and reaching for a comb. “I sha'n't do much to-day, of course--I'm in such a hurry for you to see how pretty you are; but some day I'm going to take it all down and have a perfectly lovely time with it,” she cried, touching with soft fingers the waving hair above the sick woman's forehead.