Bell, just as great grown people said to her when she
remembered strange things, "No, there never was in the world a Sister
like that!"

Then the smaller of the little girls who were playing together ran to
the larger one, and caught hold of her hand, and they stood together in
front of Bessie Bell--they both had long black curls, but Bessie Bell
had short golden curls--and the smaller girl said: "Yes, she is my
sister!"

And the larger girl said: "Yes, she is, too. She is
my-own-dear-sister!"

The smaller little girl shook her black curls and said: "She is my
own-dear-owny-downy-dear-sister!"

In all of her life Bessie Bell had never heard anything like that.

And all the other little girls who were playing joined in and said:
"Bessie Bell doesn't know what she is talking about. Of course you are
sisters. Everybody knows you are sisters!"

Bessie Bell was distressed to be told that she did not know what she
was talking about--and she knew so much about Sisters.

So she began to cry, very softly.

Then she stopped crying long enough to say: "But I never saw Sisters
like that before!"

Then she took up her crying again right where she left off.

Then a little boy--but he seemed a very large boy to Bessie Bell with
his long-striped-stocking-legs--said to Bessie Bell: "No, Bessie Bell,
they are not Sisters like Sister Helen Vincula and the Sisters that you
know, but they are just what they say they are--just own dear sisters."

Then came to Bessie Bell that knowledge that we are often times slow in
getting: she knew all of a sudden--that she did not know everything.
She did not know all, even about Sisters.

Because, in all that she knew or remembered or wondered about, there
was nothing at all about that strange thing that all the little
children, but herself, knew so well about--"Own-dear-sisters."

Another strange thing came into her mind, brought into her mind partly
by her ears, but mostly by her eyes: There were not in this new world
on the high mountain--perhaps there were not after all so many anywhere
as she had thought--there were not so many Sisters like Sister Helen
Vincula (for was not Sister Helen Vincula the only Sister she had seen
on the mountain?). There were not after all so many Sisters like
Sister Angela; and Sister Mary Felice, who watched the little
blue-checked-apron girls playing in the sand; and Sister Ignatius, who
cooked the cakes with the caraway seeds in them; and Sister Th