The Little Girl called her father the Ogre for want of a better name. She was never quite satisfied with the name, but it had to answer till she found another. Prob'ly ogres didn't wear an eye-glass in one of their eyes, or flip off the sweet little daisy heads with cruel canes, but they were oldish and scare-ish, and of course they wouldn't have noticed you any, even if you were their Little Girl. Ogres would have prob'ly wanted a Boy too, and that's the way they'd have let you see your mistake. So, till she found a better name, the Little Girl who had made the mistake called her father the Ogre. She was very proud and fond of the Shining Mother, but she was a little afraid of the Ogre. After all, one feeling mattered about as much as the other. "It doesn't hurt you any to be afraid, when you do it all alone by yourself," she reasoned, "and it doesn't do you any good to be fond. It only amuses you," she added, with sad wisdom. As I said, she was only seven, but she was very old indeed. So the time went along until the weeks piled up into months. The summer she was eight, the Little Girl could not stand it any longer. She decided that something must be done. The Shining Mother and the Ogre were coming back to the green expanses. She had found that out at lessons. "And then they will have it all to go over again--all the miser'bleness of my not being a Boy," the Little Girl thought, sadly. "And I don't know whether they can stand it or not, but _I_ can't." A wave of infinite longing had swept over the shy, sensitive soul of the Little Girl who should have been a Boy. One of two things must happen--she must be loved, or die. So, being desperate, she resolved to chance everything. It was under the Golden Pippin tree, rocking herself back and forth in the long grass, that she made her plans. Straight on the heels of them she went to the gardener's little boy. "Lend me--no, I mean give me--your best clothes," she said, with gentle imperiousness. It was not a time to waste words. At best, the time that was left to practise in was limited enough. "Your _best_ clothes," she had said, realizing distinctly that fustian and corduroy would not do. She was even a little doubtful of the best clothes. The gardener's little boy, once his mouth had shut and his legs come back to their locomotion, brought them at once. If there was a suspicion of alacrity in his obedience towards the last, it escaped the thoughtful eyes of the Little Girl. Having always been a mistake, nothing more, how could she know that a boy's best clothes are not always his dearest possession? Now if it had been the threadbare, roomy, easy little fustians, with their precious pocket-loads, that she had demanded!