e while they've been shut up
sick, that no matter how long they stay in the Pine Woods, it couldn't
make up for all they've missed by not being me."

"Do you really feel that way about it, dear?" cried Elizabeth, much
pleased and touched at the child's unlooked-for declaration.

"You just better b'lieve I do! Why, I've had just the nicest time! I
'xpected I'd miss seeing the girls just dreadfully, but Gail and Faith
have come up every single week, and I've telephoned home 'most every
day, and the rest of the time has been filled so full that I haven't
minded how long I've been away at all. This must be my other home, I
guess."

"You little sweetheart! I wonder if you have any idea how much we are
going to miss you when grandpa takes you away again."

"Oh, yes, I 'magine I do. I make such a racket wherever I go that when I
leave, the stillness seems like a hole. But don't you fret! I'm coming
up here real often--just as often as grandma will let me. 'Cause I've
got not only you to visit now, but the Lilac Lady and Juiceharpie and
the Home children--Oh, that's what I started to tell you about when I
first came up.

"I've just been there. I never knew there was a Home so near here, or
I'd have been there before this. And what do you think? There's a girl
living in it named Lottie, which looks so much like me that when we
changed aprons the other children didn't know the difference at first.
They think she must be my twin sister or some cousin I don't know
anything about, though I kept telling them there weren't any cousins in
our family, and if mother'd ever had twins, she'd have kept 'em both and
not throwed one away to grow up without knowing who her people were.
Don't you think so?"

"I most assuredly do," Elizabeth answered promptly. "Gail has often told
me that your papa was an only child, and the one brother your mamma had
died when he was a little fellow. So there can't be any near cousins,
and you are not a twin, so Lottie isn't your sister. How did it all come
about?"

The story was quickly told, to Elizabeth's mingled amusement and horror;
and Peace ended by sagely remarking, "So I'm going to ask Allee if she's
willing that we should use some of our Fourth of July money to buy them
a treat of sugar and butter for a whole day--or a week, if it doesn't
take too much, and grandpa don't sit down on the plan. I don't think he
will, 'cause these children aren't fakes. They really d'serve having
some good times