Tony didn’t see me standing by the garden fence, and he gave the funny little whistle that he calls the Raccoon whistle for the Palefaces and which he always whistles when he wants to signal something to one of the girls.  Then suddenly they all saw me, and that politely enduring look came over all three faces at once, though Mamie Sue’s face is so jolly and round by nature that it is very hard to prim it down suddenly, and I don’t believe she would always trouble to put it on for me, only Belle seems to demand it of her as an echo of her sentiments toward me.  Some people can’t seem to be sure of themselves unless they can get somebody else to echo them and I think that is why Belle has to keep poor Mamie Sue at her elbow all the time.

But when I saw the politeness plaster spread itself over all their faces at the sight of me enjoying myself like any other girl, I just turned away wearily and started back along my own garden path, back to my own house which I felt that I ought not to be living in.  But something sweet happened to me before I left that makes me feel nice and warm even now to think about.

“Please don’t go away, Phyllis,” said Roxanne, looking right into my face with such a lovely look in her own eyes that it was almost impossible, for an instant, for me to believe it was charity.

For a moment I wanted to stay, and almost did; but if she could be generous, so could I, and I didn’t intend to spoil their fun for even a minute, so I just smiled at her and bowed to them as I walked away.

Nobody knows how it does hurt me to be this kind of an outcast!  I have lived fifteen years with a sick mother, and a governess and trained nurses, and never a chance of having friends; and now that one is just at my back door I can’t have her because useless wealth is between us.  Is there no way the rich can turn poor without disgrace?  But I’ve got that smile from Roxanne and I’m going to believe it was meant for the real me.  Good-night!

* * * * *

I’m so full of happiness and scare and a secret that if I didn’t have this little book to spill some of it out to I don’t know what I would do.  A secret sometimes makes a girl feel like she would explode worse than a bottle of nitroglycerin, though it makes me nervous even to write the word when I think of what might have happened to Lovelace Peyton if I hadn’t had a father who is cool enough to keep his head at all times and handed that quality down to me.

Tony Luttrell is the leader of the Raccoon Patrol of the Boy Scouts, and he has a star for pulling Pink Chadwell out of the swimming-pool one day last summer when Pink had eaten too many green apples and the cold water gave him cramps.  Tony had to hit him on the head to keep them both from being drowned.  It was a grand thing for him to do, and everybody in this town looks up to Tony as a hero.  Roxanne says the thing that hurts her most is that she can’t tell all the boys and girls how brave I am because of the secret which I had to find out when I saved the life of Lovelace Peyton.