isn't half as pretty as Long Lake. What's the use
of wasting our time here, anyhow?"

"Why--why--because there are people here! I just love seeing people,
Bessie, they're so interesting, because they're all so different, and
you never know what they're going to say or do. And there may be someone
we know here, too."

"There can't be anyone I know, Dolly."

"Oh, bother! Well, there may be someone I know, and that's the same
thing, isn't it? Come on, be a sport, Bessie."

"That's what you said about going in the car with Mr. Holmes the other
day, too."

"Oh, but this isn't a bit like that, Bessie."

"It might get us into just as much mischief, Dolly. No, I'm not going
over there. It's silly, and it's wrong."

And this time Bessie stood firm. Despite Dolly's pleading, which turned,
presently, to angry threats, she refused absolutely to go any nearer the
hotel, and Dolly was afraid to venture there alone, though there was
very little she _was_ afraid to _do_. In her inmost heart, of course,
Dolly knew that Bessie was right, and that she had had no business to
trick her chum into seeming to break her promise to Miss Eleanor.

"Oh, well," she said, "I might have known that I couldn't always make
you do what you don't want to do, Bessie. You're not mad at me, are
you?"

Bessie, pleased by this sign of surrender, returned the smile.

"I ought to be, but I'm not, Dolly," she answered. "I think that is one
of the reasons you keep on doing these things--but no one ever really
does get angry with you, as they should. If someone you really cared for
got properly angry at you just once for one of your little tricks, I
think it would teach you not to do anything of the sort for a long
time."

"Oh, I don't mean any harm, Bessie, and you know it, and when people
really like you they don't get angry unless they think you're really
trying to be mean. I say, Bessie, if you won't go over to the hotel,
will you walk just a little way over to the other side, and see what
that funny looking place is where those big wagons are all spread out?"

Bessie followed Dolly's pointing finger, and saw, on the side of Loon
Pond opposite the hotel, several wagons, among which smoke was rising.

"It looks like a circus," said Dolly.

"It isn't, though. I know what they are," said Bessie, promptly. "It's a
gypsy encampment. Do you mean you've never seen one, Dolly?"

"No; and oh dear, Bessie, I've always wanted to. Surely we could go a
li