One day the strangest thing of all so far happened.
One little girl called another little girl with whom she was playing, "Sister."
Bessie Bell laughed at that.
"Oh, she is not a Sister!" said Bessie Bell.
"Yes, she is; she is my sister!" said the little girl.
"No," said Bessie Bell, just as great grown people said to her when she remembered strange things, "No, there never was in the world a Sister like that!"
Then the smaller of the little girls who were playing together ran to the larger one, and caught hold of her hand, and they stood together in front of Bessie Bell—they both had long black curls, but Bessie Bell had short golden curls—and the smaller girl said: "Yes, she is my sister!"
And the larger girl said: "Yes, she is, too. She is my-own-dear-sister!"
The smaller little girl shook her black curls and said: "She is my own-dear-owny-downy-dear-sister!"
In all of her life Bessie Bell had never heard anything like that.