It did not seem possible that anything drearier than this could happen. Margaret would not have dreamed it possible. But a little way farther down Lonesome Road waited something a great deal worse. It was waiting for Margaret behind the schoolhouse stone-wall. The very next day it jumped out upon her. Usually at recess Nell--the Enemy--and Margaret had gone wandering away together with their arms around each other's waist, as happy as anything. But for a week of recesses now they had gone wandering in opposite directions--the Enemy marching due east, Margaret due west. The stone-wall stretched away to the west. She had found a nice lonesome little place to huddle in, behind the wall, out of sight. It was just the place to be miserable in. "I know something!" from one of a little group of gossipers on the outside of the wall. "She needn't stick her chin out an' not come an' play with us. She's _nothing but an adopted!_" "Oh!--a what?" in awestruck chorus from the listeners. "Say it again, Rhody Sharp." "An adopted--that's all she is. I guess nobody but an adopted need to go trampin' past when we invite her to play with us! I guess we're good as she is an' better, too, so there!" Margaret in her hidden nook heard with a cold terror creeping over her and settling around her heart. It was so close now that she breathed with difficulty. If--supposing they meant-- "Rhody Sharp, you're fibbing! I don't believe a single word you say!" sprang forth a champion valiantly. "She's dreadfully fond of her mother--just _dreadfully!_" "She doesn't know it," promptly returned Rhody Sharp, her voice stabbing poor Margaret's ear like a sharp little sword. "They're keeping it from her. My gran'mother doesn't believe they'd ought to. She says--" But nobody cared what Rhody Sharp's gran'mother said. A clatter of shocked little voices burst forth into excited, pitying discussion of the unfortunate who was nothing but an adopted. One of their own number! One they spelled with and multiplied with and said the capitals with every day! That they had invited to come and play with them--an' she'd stuck her chin out! "Why! Why, then she's a--orphan!" one voice exclaimed. "Really an' honest she is--an' she doesn't know it!" "Oh my, isn't it awful!" another voice. "Shouldn't you think she'd hide her head--I mean, if she knew?" It was already hidden. Deep down in the sweet, moist grass--a little heavy, uncrowned, terror-smitten head. The cruel voices kept on. "It's just like a disgrace, isn't it? Shouldn't you s'pose it would feel that way if 'twas you?" "Think o' kissin' your mother good-night an' it's not bein' your mother?" "Say, Rhody Sharp--all o' you--look here! Do you suppose that's why her mother--I mean she that _isn't_--dresses her in checked aperns? That's what orphans--"