--nor can't know,
I hope; 'cause if she did, she'd know other things--that I don't want
her to know.

"But it's just this. It's been hard times with us this year, in more
ways than one. We've been blue and discouraged--my man and me, and ready
for--'most anything. We was reckoning on getting a divorce about now,
and letting the kids well, we didn't know what we would do with the
kids, Then came the accident, and what we heard about the little girl's
never walking again. And we got to thinking how she used to come and
sit on our doorstep and train with the kids, and laugh, and--and just be
glad. She was always being glad about something; and then, one day, she
told us why, and about the game, you know; and tried to coax us to play
it.

"Well, we've heard now that she's fretting her poor little life out of
her, because she can't play it no more--that there's nothing to be glad
about. And that's what I came to tell her to-day--that maybe she can be
a little glad for us, 'cause we've decided to stick to each other, and
play the game ourselves. I knew she would be glad, because she used to
feel kind of bad--at things we said, sometimes. Just how the game is
going to help us, I can't say that I exactly see, yet; but maybe 'twill.
Anyhow, we're going to try--'cause she wanted us to. Will you tell her?"

"Yes, I will tell her," promised Miss Polly, a little faintly. Then,
with sudden impulse, she stepped forward and held out her hand. "And
thank you for coming, Mrs. Payson," she said simply.

The defiant chin fell. The lips above it trembled visibly. With an
incoherently mumbled something, Mrs. Payson blindly clutched at the
outstretched hand, turned, and fled.

The door had scarcely closed behind her before Miss Polly was
confronting Nancy in the kitchen.

"Nancy!"

Miss Polly spoke sharply. The series of puzzling, disconcerting visits
of the last few days, culminating as they had in the extraordinary
experience of the afternoon, had strained her nerves to the snapping
point. Not since Miss Pollyanna's accident had Nancy heard her mistress
speak so sternly.

"Nancy, WILL you tell me what this absurd 'game' is that the whole town
seems to be babbling about? And what, please, has my niece to do with
it? WHY does everybody, from Milly Snow to Mrs. Tom Payson, send word to
her that they're 'playing it'? As near as I can judge, half the town
are putting on blue ribbons, or stopping family quarrels, or learning to
like so