"Not that you're stuck up, and hateful and proud, not that you don't want to be neighbourly with other people, no, I don't think that. But your father said in our home that there was no God, and you wouldn't let my mother in when she put on her best dress and went in the carriage, and wanted to be friends. I have to believe that." "Yes, you can't help believing that," said the Princess. "Then can't you see why you'll be likely to show Laddie the way to find trouble, instead of sunshine?" "I can see," said the Princess. "Oh Princess, you won't do it, will you?" I cried. "Don't you think such a big man as Laddie can take care of himself?" she asked, and the dancing lights that had begun to fade came back. "Over there," she pointed through our woods toward the southwest, "lives a man you know. What do his neighbours call him?" "Stiff-necked Johnny," I answered promptly. "And the man who lives next him?" "Pinch-fist Williams." Her finger veered to another neighbour's. "The girls of that house?" "Giggle-head Smithsons." "What about the man who lives over there?" "He beats his wife." "And the house beyond?" "Mother whispers about them. 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.