at makes it all the
harder. She found out--drat that cat! I begs yer pardon," apologized the
girl, hurriedly. "It's only that the cat pushed open the door an' Miss
Pollyanna overheard 'em talkin'. She found out--that way."

"Poor--little--girl!" sighed the man again.

"Yes, sir. You'd say so, sir, if you could see her," choked Nancy. "I
hain't seen her but twice since she knew about it, an' it done me up
both times. Ye see it's all so fresh an' new to her, an' she keeps
thinkin' all the time of new things she can't do--NOW. It worries her,
too, 'cause she can't seem ter be glad--maybe you don't know about her
game, though," broke off Nancy, apologetically.

"The 'glad game'?" asked the man. "Oh, yes; she told me of that."

"Oh, she did! Well, I guess she has told it generally ter most folks.
But ye see, now she--she can't play it herself, an' it worries her.
She says she can't think of a thing--not a thing about this not walkin'
again, ter be glad about."

"Well, why should she?" retorted the man, almost savagely.

Nancy shifted her feet uneasily.

"That's the way I felt, too--till I happened ter think--it WOULD be
easier if she could find somethin', ye know. So I tried to--to remind
her."

"To remind her! Of what?" John Pendleton's voice was still angrily
impatient.

"Of--of how she told others ter play it Mis' Snow, and the rest, ye
know--and what she said for them ter do. But the poor little lamb just
cries, an' says it don't seem the same, somehow. She says it's easy ter
TELL lifelong invalids how ter be glad, but 'tain't the same thing when
you're the lifelong invalid yerself, an' have ter try ter do it. She
says she's told herself over an' over again how glad she is that other
folks ain't like her; but that all the time she's sayin' it, she ain't
really THINKIN' of anythin' only how she can't ever walk again."

Nancy paused, but the man did not speak. He sat with his hand over his
eyes.

"Then I tried ter remind her how she used ter say the game was all the
nicer ter play when--when it was hard," resumed Nancy, in a dull voice.
"But she says that, too, is diff'rent--when it really IS hard. An' I
must be goin', now, sir," she broke off abruptly.

At the door she hesitated, turned, and asked timidly:

"I couldn't be tellin' Miss Pollyanna that--that you'd seen Jimmy Bean
again, I s'pose, sir, could I?"

"I don't see how you could--as I haven't seen him," observed the man a
little shortly. "Why?"