strange thing. She
began to laugh. But even while she laughed she blushed, too. _Had_ she
sounded as desperate as all that? How far away such tragedies seemed
now! Suppose she should write, "Dear Bess, I like it up here and I am
going to stay my year out." Bess would think her crazy; so would all
the girls, and Aunt Margaret, too.

And then suddenly an arresting idea came into her head. What
difference would it make if they did think her crazy? Elliott Cameron
had never had such an idea before; all her life she had in a perfectly
nice way thought a great deal about what people thought of her. This
idea was so strange it set her gasping. "But how they would _talk_
about me!" she said. And then her brain clicked back, exactly like
another person speaking, "What if they did? That wouldn't really make
you crazy, would it?" "Why, no, I suppose it wouldn't," she thought.
"And most likely they'd be all talked out by the time I got back, too.
But even if they weren't, any one would be crazy to think it was crazy
to want to stay up here at Uncle Bob's and Aunt Jessica's. Even
Stannard has stayed weeks longer than he needed to!"

When she thought of that she opened her eyes wide for a minute. "Oho!"
she said to herself; "I guess Stan did get a rise out of me! You were
easy game that time, Elliott Cameron."

She sat on her mossy stone a long time. There wasn't anything in the
world, was there, to stand in the way of her staying her year out, the
year she had been invited for, except her own silly pride? What a
little goose she had been! She sat and smiled at the mountains and
felt very happy and fresh and clean-minded, as though her brain had
finished a kind of house-cleaning and were now put to rights again,
airy and sweet and ready for use.

The postman's wagon flashed by on the road below. She could see the
faded gray of the man's coat. He had been to the house and was
townward bound now. How late he was! Nothing to hurry down for. There
would be a letter, perhaps, but not one from Father. His had come
yesterday. She rose after a while and drifted down through the still
September warmth, as quiet and lazy and contented as a leaf.

Priscilla's small excited face met her at the door.

"Sidney's sick; we just got the letter. Mother's going to camp
to-morrow."

"Sidney sick! Who wrote? What's the matter?"

"He did. He's not much sick, but he doesn't feel just right. He's in
the hospital. I guess he can't be much sick, if