happen to see any of that. Miss Patty, however, did not make public her decision, but Mrs. Ladue knew what it was just as well as if she had shouted it from the housetop. Where did a talk with Patty end but where it began? And Mrs. Ladue had been sitting at her own window--she shared Sally's room--she had been sitting at her own window while Patty sat at hers and looked at Charlie over the wall. But Mrs. Ladue watched longer than Patty and she saw several things which Patty was spared; to be sure, the wall was very high and cut off the view from a large part of the lot, but she saw Ollie Pilcher run after Charlie at last and chase him into that part of the lot which she could not see. Ollie was not noted for his patience, but Mrs. Ladue thought the loss of the remnants of it was excusable, in the circumstances. Then there was an outcry and it was not Ollie's voice that cried out. Mrs. Ladue sighed and got out of her comfortable chair and went downstairs. She hoped she should be ahead of Patty when Charlie came in. She was not, but she and Patty waited together; and Charlie came. He was not crying, but the traces of tears were on his face. Miss Patty gave a little exclamation of horror. "Charlie," began Mrs. Ladue hurriedly, before Patty could speak, "come up with me. I want to talk with you." Charlie wanted to go with Cousin Patty; he didn't want to be talked to. He said so with much petulance. "Let me take the poor child, Sarah," Patty began. "After I have talked with him, Patty," said Mrs. Ladue patiently. Nobody should know how she dreaded this talk. "Come, Charlie." She made Charlie mount the stairs ahead of her and she succeeded in steering him into her room. He washed his face with furious haste. "Charlie, dear boy," she said at last, "I was watching you for a long time this afternoon. You know that I can see very well what goes on in the lot from this window." He was wiping his face and he exposed his eyes for a moment, gazing at his mother over the edge of the towel. They were handsome eyes and they were filled now with a calculating thoughtfulness, which his mother noted. It did not make her feel any easier. Charlie considered it worth risking. "Then you saw," he said, still with that petulant note in his voice, "how the boys picked on me. Why, they--" "I saw, Charlie," Mrs. Ladue interrupted, smiling wearily, "not how the boys picked on you, but how you bothered them. I thought Ollie was very patient and I didn't blame him a bit." "But he _hurt_ me," Charlie cried in astonishment. It was the most heinous sin that he knew of. Patty would think so. "You deserved to be hurt. You are eleven, Charlie, and I'm surprised that you don't see that your actions will leave you without friends, absolutely without friends within a few years. Where should we be now, Charlie," continued Mrs. Ladue gently, "if we had had no friends?" "Guess Cousin Patty'd be my friend," Charlie grumbled. "Guess she would."