To think that now never again would that smiling face be seen on their streets--never again would that cheery little voice proclaim the gladness of some everyday experience! It seemed unbelievable, impossible, cruel.
In kitchens and sitting rooms, and over back-yard fences women talked of it, and wept openly.

On street corners and in store lounging-places the men talked, too, and wept--though not so openly.

And neither the talking nor the weeping grew less when fast on the heels of the news itself, came Nancy's pitiful story that Pollyanna, face to face with what had come to her, was bemoaning most of all the fact that she could not play the game; that she could not now be glad over--anything.
It was then that the same thought must have, in some way, come to Pollyanna's friends.

At all events, almost at once, the mistress of the Harrington homestead, greatly to her surprise, began to receive calls: calls from people she knew, and people she did not know; calls from men, women, and children--many of whom Miss Polly had not supposed that her niece knew at all.
Some came in and sat down for a stiff five or ten minutes.

Some stood awkwardly on the porch steps, fumbling with hats or hand-bags, according to their sex.