vacation with a friend right close to
you all the time, skipping with you and keeping house with you and
telling all her secrets to you, is about as far away as--as China is
from an _Enemy_ 'cross the fence! Oh, hum! some vacations are so
splendid and some are so un-splendid!

It did not seem possible that anything drearier than this could
happen. Margaret would not have dreamed it possible. But a little way
farther down Lonesome Road waited something a great deal worse. It
was waiting for Margaret behind the schoolhouse stone-wall. The very
next day it jumped out upon her.

Usually at recess Nell--the Enemy--and Margaret had gone wandering
away together with their arms around each other's waist, as happy as
anything. But for a week of recesses now they had gone wandering in
opposite directions--the Enemy marching due east, Margaret due west.
The stone-wall stretched away to the west. She had found a nice
lonesome little place to huddle in, behind the wall, out of sight. It
was just the place to be miserable in.

"I know something!" from one of a little group of gossipers on the
outside of the wall. "She needn't stick her chin out an' not come an'
play with us. She's _nothing but an adopted!_"

"Oh!--a what?" in awestruck chorus from the listeners. "Say it again,
Rhody Sharp."

"An adopted--that's all she is. I guess nobody but an adopted need to
go trampin' past when we invite her to play with us! I guess we're
good as she is an' better, too, so there!"

Margaret in her hidden nook heard with a cold terror creeping over
her and settling around her heart. It was so close now that she
breathed with difficulty. If--supposing they meant--

"Rhody Sharp, you're fibbing! I don't believe a single word you say!"
sprang forth a champion valiantly. "She's dreadfully fond of her
mother--just _dreadfully!_"

"She doesn't know it," promptly returned Rhody Sharp, her voice
stabbing poor Margaret's ear like a sharp little sword. "They're
keeping it from her. My gran'mother doesn't believe they'd ought to.
She says--"

But nobody cared what Rhody Sharp's gran'mother said. A clatter of
shocked little voices burst forth into excited, pitying discussion of
the unfortunate who was nothing but an adopted. One of their own
number! One they spelled with and multiplied with and said the
capitals with every day! That they had invited to come and play with
them--an' she'd stuck her chin out!

"Why! Why, then she's a--orphan!" one