, I wouldn't ask you to tell a lie for the world, but if you
were just to say that you heard me say--"

"I think it would be a lie," said little Lucy, "because how can I help
knowing if she was never here she couldn't--"

"Oh, well, little Lucy," cried Jim, in despair, still with
tenderness--how could he be anything but tender with little Lucy?--"all
I ask is never to say anything about it."

"If they ask me?"

"Anyway, you can hold your tongue. You know it isn't wicked to hold your
tongue."

Little Lucy absurdly stuck out the pointed tip of her little red tongue.
Then she shook her head slowly.

"Well," she said, "I will hold my tongue."

This encounter with innocence and logic had left him worsted. Jim could
see no way out of the fact that his father, the rector, his mother,
the rector's wife, and he, the rector's son, were disgraced by their
relationship to such an unsanctified little soul as this queer Content
Adams.

And yet he looked at the poor lonely little girl, who was trying very
hard to learn her lessons, who suggested in her very pose and movement
a little, scared rabbit ready to leap the road for some bush of
hiding, and while he was angry with her he pitied her. He had no doubts
concerning Content's keeping her promise. He was quite sure that he
would now say nothing whatever about that big sister Solly to the
others, but he was not prepared for what happened that very afternoon.

When he went home from school his heart stood still to see Miss Martha
Rose, and Arnold Carruth's aunt Flora, and his aunt who was not his
aunt, Miss Dorothy Vernon, who was visiting her, all walking along in
state with their lace-trimmed parasols, their white gloves, and their
nice card-cases. Jim jumped a fence and raced across lots home, and
gained on them. He burst in on his mother, sitting on the porch, which
was inclosed by wire netting overgrown with a budding vine. It was the
first warm day of the season.

"Mother," cried Jim Patterson--"mother, they are coming!"

"Who, for goodness' sake, Jim?"

"Why, Arnold's aunt Flora and his aunt Dorothy and little Lucy's aunt
Martha. They are coming to call."

Involuntarily Sally's hand went up to smooth her pretty hair. "Well,
what of it, Jim?" said she.

"Mother, they will ask for--big sister Solly!"

Sally Patterson turned pale. "How do you know?"

"Mother, Content has been talking at school. A lot know. You will see
they will ask for--"

"Run right in and