Eleanor H. Porter

“ I reckon folks'll be glad when they do see it—and surprised, too, 'cause you've hid it so long. Why, Aunt Polly, I'll make you so pretty everybody'll just love to look at you!"
"Pollyanna!" gasped a stifled but shocked voice from a veil of hair. "I—I'm sure I don't know why I'm letting you do this silly thing."
"Why, Aunt Polly, I should think you'd be glad to have folks like to look at you! Don't you like to look at pretty things? I'm ever so much happier when I look at pretty folks, 'cause when I look at the other kind I'm so sorry for them." ”

“ Can folks have 'em when you don't know they've got 'em? Do you suppose I could?—'fore I get to Heaven, I mean," she cried, pulling out with eager fingers the straight locks above her ears. "But then, they wouldn't be black, if they did come. You can't hide the black part."
"Pollyanna, what does all this mean?" demanded Aunt Polly, hurriedly removing her hat, and trying to smooth back her disordered hair.
"No, no—please, Aunt Polly!" Pollyanna's jubilant voice turned to one of distressed appeal. "Don't smooth 'em out! It's those that I'm talking about—those darling little black curls. ”

“ At that moment—unaccountably—Miss Polly caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror of the dressing table. And what she saw sent such a flush of rosy color to her cheeks that—she only flushed the more at the sight. ”