. I don't know."

"And the woman on the hill?"

"She doesn't do anything but gussip and make every one trouble."

"Exactly!" said the Princess. "Yet most of these people come to your
house, and your family goes to theirs. Do you suppose people they know
nothing about are so much worse than these others?"

"If your father will take it back about God, and your mother will let
people in--my mother and father both wanted to be friends, you know."

"That I can't possibly do," she said, "but maybe I could change their
feelings toward me."

"Do it!" I cried. "Oh, I'd just love you to do it! I wish you would
come to our house and be friends. Sally is pretty as you are, only a
different way, and I know she'd like you, and so would Shelley. If
Laddie writes you letters and comes here about sunshine, of course he'd
be delighted if mother knew you; because she loves him best of any of
us. She depends on him most as much as father."

"Then will you keep the secret until I have time to try--say until this
time next year?"

"I'll keep it just as long as Laddie wants me to."

"Good!" said the Princess. "No wonder Laddie thinks you the finest
Little Sister any one ever had."

"Does Laddie think that?" I asked

"He does indeed!" said the Princess.

"Then I'm not afraid to go home," I said. "And I'll bring his letter
the next time he can't come."

"Were you scared this time?"

I told her about that Something in the dry bed, the wolves, wildcats,
Paddy Ryan, and the Gypsies.

"You little goosie," said the Princess. "I am afraid that brother Leon
of yours is the biggest rogue loose in this part of the country.
Didn't it ever occur to you that people named Wolfe live over there,
and they call that crowd next us 'wildcats,' because they just went on
some land and took it, and began living there without any more
permission than real wildcats ask to enter the woods? Do you suppose I
would be here, and everywhere else I want to go, if there were any
danger? Did anything really harm you coming?"

"You're harmed when you're scared until you can't breathe," I said.
"Anyway, nothing could get me coming, because I held the letter tight
in my hand, like Laddie said. If you'd write me one to take back, I'd
be safe going home."

"I see," said the Princess. "But I've no pencil, and no paper, unless
I use the back of one of Laddie's letters, and that wouldn't be polite."

"You can make new fashions," I said, "but you