"I cannot tell you. Do not ask me."
"Oh dear, another mystery!" exclaimed Elizabeth, petulantly. "I do hate secrets, and there are so many in this house! There is the closed room, and my father staying away, and now when I go to school, and everything seems nice and pleasant, and I have a friend at last, you go and make a mystery about her."
"Be quiet, Elizabeth. I cannot bear it! Rebecca, what do you think? Shall the child continue to go there? Will it do for her to be thrown with Martha Wayne's daughter?"
For a moment Elizabeth was speechless with indignation. Then, before her aunt Rebecca could reply, she started from her chair.
"Aunt Caroline," she cried, stamping her foot, "you are a horrid old thing! I will go there to school. I will be friends with Patsy! You won't let me have a thing like other girls! I wish my father would come home and take me away from here!" And she ran crying from the room.
"Her frightful temper again," exclaimed Miss Herrick; "and the doctor said she must not be excited! What shall we do, Rebecca?"
"You are very foolish to allow yourself to be so agitated. The child must go to school, and we cannot prevent her making friends. I wish Edward would come home and take her off our hands. But as for keeping her from Martha Wayne's daughter, or, in fact, from any one who knew Mildred—"
"Rebecca! How often have I asked you never to mention that name? I must go now and pacify Elizabeth, or she will make herself ill."
Miss Herrick's face looked drawn and old as she left the room. It was some time before Elizabeth could be quieted, but when she went to school the next morning it was with the permission to see as much of Patsy Loring as she wished.
The two girls were soon fast friends. Patsy came once or twice to Fourth Street, but they liked better to meet in her own little house, where the rooms were small, and the carpets and furniture were not particularly new, but where the sun shone brightly in at the windows, and where there was plenty of fun and merrymaking all day long.