Page 164 - pollyanna
P. 164

cy, THAT isn’t the way to play the game—to be glad for
       things like that!’ she objected.
         ‘There  wa’n’t  no  game  in  it,’  retorted  Nancy.  ‘Never
       thought of it. YOU don’t seem ter sense what it means ter
       have Miss Polly WORRIED about ye, child!’
         ‘Why, it means worried—and worried is horrid—to feel,’
       maintained Pollyanna. ‘What else can it mean?’
          Nancy tossed her head.
         ‘Well, I’ll tell ye what it means. It means she’s at last get-
       tin’ down somewheres near human—like folks; an’ that she
       ain’t jest doin’ her duty by ye all the time.’
         ‘Why,  Nancy,’  demurred  the  scandalized  Pollyanna,
       ‘Aunt Polly always does her duty. She—she’s a very dutiful
       woman!’  Unconsciously  Pollyanna  repeated  John  Pendle-
       ton’s words of half an hour before.
          Nancy chuckled.
         ‘You’re  right  she  is—and  she  always  was,  I  guess!  But
       she’s somethin’ more, now, since you came.’
          Pollyanna’s face changed. Her brows drew into a trou-
       bled frown.
         ‘There, that’s what I was going to ask you, Nancy,’ she
       sighed.  ‘Do  you  think  Aunt  Polly  likes  to  have  me  here?
       Would she mind—if if I wasn’t here any more?’
          Nancy threw a quick look into the little girl’s absorbed
       face. She had expected to be asked this question long before,
       and she had dreaded it. She had wondered how she should
       answer it—how she could answer it honestly without cru-
       elly hurting the questioner. But now, NOW, in the face of
       the  new  suspicions  that  had  become  convictions  by  the

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