interested she now was in finding something new "for Jamie to see."
Neither did she realize how day by day he was coming to seem to her
more and more the lost Jamie, her dead sister's child.

As February, March, and April passed, however, and May came, bringing
with it the near approach of the date set for Pollyanna's home-going,
Mrs. Carew did suddenly awake to the knowledge of what that home-going
was to mean to her.

She was amazed and appalled. Up to now she had, in belief, looked
forward with pleasure to the departure of Pollyanna. She had said that
then once again the house would be quiet, with the glaring sun shut
out. Once again she would be at peace, and able to hide herself away
from the annoying, tiresome world. Once again she would be free to
summon to her aching consciousness all those dear memories of the lost
little lad who had so long ago stepped into that vast unknown and
closed the door behind him. All this she had believed would be the
case when Pollyanna should go home.

But now that Pollyanna was really going home, the picture was far
different. The "quiet house with the sun shut out" had become one that
promised to be "gloomy and unbearable." The longed-for "peace" would
be "wretched loneliness"; and as for her being able to "hide herself
away from the annoying, tiresome world," and "free to summon to her
aching consciousness all those dear memories of that lost little
lad"--just as if anything could blot out those other aching memories
of the new Jamie (who yet might be the old Jamie) with his pitiful,
pleading eyes!

Full well now Mrs. Carew knew that without Pollyanna the house would