se. You will promise me, won't you, little Lucy?"

A troubled expression came into little Lucy's kind eyes. "But she told
Lily, and Lily told Amelia, and Amelia told her grandmother Wheeler,
and her grandmother Wheeler told Miss Parmalee when she met her on the
street after school, and Miss Parmalee called on my aunt Martha and told
her," said little Lucy.

"Oh, shucks!" said Jim.

"And my aunt Martha told my father that she thought perhaps she ought
to ask for her when she called on your mother. She said Arnold Carruth's
aunt Flora was going to call, and his aunt Dorothy. I heard Miss Acton
tell Miss Parmalee that she thought they ought to ask for her when they
called on your mother, too."

"Little Lucy," he said, and lowered his voice, "you must promise me
never, as long as you live, to tell what I am going to tell you."

Little Lucy looked frightened.

"Promise!" insisted Jim.

"I promise," said little Lucy, in a weak voice.

"Never, as long as you live, to tell anybody. Promise!"

"I promise."

"Now, you know if you break your promise and tell, you will be guilty of
a dreadful lie and be very wicked."

Little Lucy shivered. "I never will."

"Well, my new cousin Content Adams--tells lies."

Little Lucy gasped.

"Yes, she does. She says she has a big sister Solly, and she hasn't got
any big sister Solly. She never did have, and she never will have. She
makes believe."

"Makes believe?" said little Lucy, in a hopeful voice.

"Making believe is just a real mean way of lying. Now I made Content
promise last night never to say one word in school about her big sister
Solly, and I am going to tell you this, so you can tell Lily and the
others and not lie. Of course, I don't want to lie myself, because my
father is rector, and, besides, mother doesn't approve of it; but if
anybody is going to lie, I am the one. Now, you mind, little Lucy.
Content's big sister Solly has gone away, and she is never coming back.
If you tell Lily and the others I said so, I can't see how you will be
lying."

Little Lucy gazed at the boy. She looked like truth incarnate. "But,"
said she, in her adorable stupidity of innocence, "I don't see how she
could go away if she was never here, Jim."

"Oh, of course she couldn't. But all you have to do is to say that you
heard me say she had gone. Don't you understand?"

"I don't understand how Content's big sister Solly could possibly go
away if she was never here."

"Little Lucy