"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.
For five minutes Pollyanna worked swiftly, deftly, combing a refractory curl into fluffiness, perking up a drooping ruffle at the neck, or shaking a pillow into plumpness so that the head might have a better pose. Meanwhile the sick woman, frowning prodigiously, and openly scoffing at the whole procedure, was, in spite of herself, beginning to tingle with a feeling perilously near to excitement.
"There!" panted Pollyanna, hastily plucking a pink from a vase near by and tucking it into the dark hair where it would give the best effect. "Now I reckon we're ready to be looked at!" And she held out the mirror in triumph.
"Humph!" grunted the sick woman, eyeing her reflection severely.
"I like red pinks better than pink ones; but then, it'll fade, anyhow, before night, so what's the difference!"
"But I should think you'd be glad they did fade," laughed Pollyanna, " 'cause then you can have the fun of getting some more. I just love your hair fluffed out like that," she finished with a satisfied gaze. "Don't you?"
"Hm-m; maybe. Still--'twon't last, with me tossing back and forth on the pillow as I do."
"Of course not--and I'm glad, too," nodded Pollyanna, cheerfully, "because then I can fix it again. Anyhow, I should think you'd be glad it's black--black shows up so much nicer on a pillow than yellow hair like mine does."
"Maybe; but I never did set much store by black hair--shows gray too soon," retorted Mrs. Snow. She spoke fretfully, but she still held the mirror before her face.
"Oh, I love black hair! I should be so glad if I only had it," sighed Pollyanna.
Mrs. Snow dropped the mirror and turned irritably.
"Well, you wouldn't!--not if you were me. You wouldn't be glad for black hair nor anything else--if you had to lie here all day as I do!"
Pollyanna bent her brows in a thoughtful frown.
"Why, 'twould be kind of hard--to do it then, wouldn't it?" she mused aloud.
"Do what?"
"Be glad about things."
"Be glad about things--when you're sick in bed all your days?
Well, I should say it would," retorted Mrs. Snow. "If you don't think so, just tell me something to be glad about; that's all!"
To Mrs. Snow's unbounded amazement, Pollyanna sprang to her feet and clapped her hands.
"Oh, goody! That'll be a hard one--won't it? I've got to go, now, but I'll think and think all the way home; and maybe the next time I come I can tell it to you. Good-by. I've had a lovely time! Good-by," she called again, as she tripped through the doorway.
"Well, I never! Now, what does she mean by that?" ejaculated Mrs.
Snow, staring after her visitor. By and by she turned her head and picked up the mirror, eyeing her reflection critically.
"That little thing HAS got a knack with hair and no mistake," she muttered under her breath. "I declare, I didn't know it could look so pretty. But then, what's the use?" she sighed, dropping the little glass into the bedclothes, and rolling her head on the pillow fretfully.
A little later, when Milly, Mrs. Snow's daughter, came in, the mirror still lay among the bedclothes it had been carefully hidden from sight.
"Why, mother--the curtain is up!" cried Milly, dividing her amazed stare between the window and the pink in her mother's hair.
"Well, what if it is?" snapped the sick woman. "I needn't stay in the dark all my life, if I am sick, need I?"
"Why, n-no, of course not," rejoined Milly, in hasty conciliation, as she reached for the medicine bottle. "It's only--well, you know very well that I've tried to get you to have a lighter room for ages and you wouldn't."
There was no reply to this. Mrs. Snow was picking at the lace on her nightgown. At last she spoke fretfully.
"I should think SOMEBODY might give me a new nightdress--instead of lamb broth, for a change!
"Why--mother!"
No wonder Milly quite gasped aloud with bewilderment. In the drawer behind her at that moment lay two new nightdresses that Milly for months had been vainly urging her mother to wear.
