Page:Pollyanna.djvu/205

A QUESTION ANSWERED "Well, I'm glad," retorted Nancy, unexpectedly. "I am, I am."

Pollyanna stared.

"Glad that Aunt Polly was scared about me! Why, Nancy, that isn't the way to play the game—to be glad for things like that!" she objected in a worried tone of voice.

"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 gettin' 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 Pendleton'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." 191