“And that’s why you haven’t any name!” exclaimed Dolly, rapturously. “But I didn’t s’pose real fairies were so big, and so ’zactly like little girls.”
“Real fairies aren’t. I’m just a—just a sort of a fairy. Oh, Dolly, don’t ask questions. Only, remember, if you tell anybody about me, we can’t play here in the woods any more. Will you promise?”
“Yes, I’ll promise,” said Dolly, solemnly, awed by Pinkie’s great earnestness.
And then they separated, and Dolly ran home with her dolls.
CHAPTER VIII
A SECRET
Dolly was very quiet after she reached home. She was greatly puzzled at the events of the afternoon.
“Of course,” she thought, “Pinkie couldn’t be a fairy. She is just as much a live little girl as I am. And yet, why should any nice little girl,—and she surely is a very nice little girl,—want our acquaintance kept secret?”
Dolly remembered a little girl in Chicago, who loved to have “secrets,” but they were very simple affairs, usually a new slate pencil, or a coming birthday party. She had never heard of such a foolish secret as not telling your name!
And so, the thought would come back; what if Pinkie should be a real fairy? To be sure, she had always thought fairies were tiny folk, but she had never seen one, so how could she know?