To do Aunt Annie justice, it should be said that rooming with Prudence Jane did not tend to cultivate in one a nature that was trustful and confiding. And yet at heart Prudence Jane was really not at all the incorrigible little fibber that she seemed. She told fibs, not because she wished to deceive, but because the dull facts of life were so much less interesting than the lively little romances which she could make up out of her own head. When one is a creative genius one naturally rebels at being shackled to anything so tedious as a fact. Prudence Jane, looking back over a day, could rarely separate the things which had really happened from those she had invented. Her brother Horace, who was studying law, said that he would give a hundred dollars to see Prudence Jane on the witness stand. This was one night at supper when she was being cross-examined by Aunt Annie. For five minutes she had kept the family spellbound by a circumstantial account of how that afternoon she had seen an automobile truck, loaded with a thousand boxes of eggs, go over the embankment. With eggs at sixty-five cents a dozen this was really a very shocking tale. 'Prudence Jane,' said Aunt Annie, who had private sources of information, 'you know well enough that no truck went over the embankment. Whatever do you mean by telling such an outrageous fib?' Prudence Jane looked across the supper table at her aunt out of two round candid eyes. 'That wasn't a fib; that was just a story' she explained. 'Well, it wasn't true; and stories that aren't true are very wicked,' said Aunt Annie with decision. 'Are all the stories in books true?' inquired Prudence Jane, the picture of innocence behind her bowl of bread and milk. 'No,' Aunt Annie was forced to admit, 'but stories written in books are different. The writers don't mean for us to believe them.' 'Do they say so in the books?' went on Prudence Jane relentlessly. 'Of course not,' said Aunt Annie; 'we know their stories aren't true, so they don't deceive us.' 'But you always know _my_ stories aren't true, too,' objected Prudence Jane; 'so I don't deceive you, either.' 'Prudence Jane,' said Aunt Annie, 'I shan't argue with you. You are a very naughty little girl. I sometimes think that you don't belong to us at all; you're so different from your brothers.'