than Byrdsville.

The worst thing about it to me is that this house I live in and the
town I live in are named for the lovely dark-eyed girl who lives down
in the old-fashioned cottage that backs up on our garden. She moved
out for me to move in, just because I am rich and she is poor. I can't
look at her straight, but I love her so that I can hardly stand it.
All the other girls in school love her too, and she is not at all
afraid of the boys, but treats them just as if they were human beings
and could be loved as such. That awful long-legged Tony walks home
with her almost every day and they all laugh and have a good time.

I always wait until everybody has gone down the street with everybody
else so they won't see how lonesome I am. Crowded lonesomeness is the
worst of all. There are many nice boys and girls just about my age
here in Byrdsville; but they can never like me. I'm glad I found it
out before I tried to be friends with any of them. The first day I
came to the Byrd Academy I heard Belle tell Mamie Sue how to treat me,
and that is what settled me into this alone state.

"Of course, be polite to her, Mamie Sue," Belle said, not knowing that
I was behind the hat-rack, pinning on my hat. "But there never was a
millionaire in Byrdsville before, and I don't see how a girl who is
that rich can be really nice. The Bible says that it is harder for a
rich man to get to heaven than for a knitting-needle to stick into a
camel, because he and it are blunt, I suppose; and it must be just the
same with such a rich girl. Poor child, I am so sorry for her; but we
must be very careful."

"Why, Belle," said Mamie Sue, in a voice that is always so comfortable
because she is nice and fat, "Roxy said she was going to like her a
lot, and she's got Roxy's lovely house while Roxy has to live in the
cottage, which is just as bad as moving into a chicken coop after the
Byrd Mansion. If Roxy likes her, it seems to me we might. She didn't
turn us out of house and home, as the almanac says."

"Don't you see that Roxy has to be nice to her, because if she isn't
we will think it is spite about the house? Roxy can't show her
resentment, but her friends can. I'm a friend."

Belle uses words and talks like a grown person in a really wonderful
way. She is the smartest girl in the rhetoric class and, of course,
she knows more than most people, and Mamie Sue realizes that. So do I.
I saw just how they all felt about me, and I don't blame