"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."