“Oh!” Anne faltered.  Then she hurried on:  “Can’t no old orphans have Honey-Sweet.  You keep the dominoes and the book and the handkerchief and the candy.  And they may have my gold beads, too.  But not Honey-Sweet.  I’d rather have her than Christmas.  There—­there’s a lonesome spot she just fits in.”

“You’d rather give away your pretty new things than that old rag doll?” Miss Farlow was amazed.

“A million times!” cried Anne, hugging her baby fondly.

“What a queer child you are, Anne Lewis!” said Miss Farlow.  “Well, well! keep your doll, of course, if you wish.”

Anne gave her an impulsive kiss.  “Thank you, Miss Farlow!  You are so good,” she said.

The holidays over, the routine of daily life was resumed.  The days and weeks and months passed, busy with work and study.  Anne welcomed the mild spring days which came at last and allowed out-of-door games.  During the autumn, the boxwood playhouse had been a place of delight to her and Dunlop and Arthur.  Now, after a spring cleaning patterned after Mrs. Marshall’s, she and Honey-Sweet again took up quarters there.

One Saturday afternoon, however, Dunlop came strutting out in an Indian suit which his mamma had just bought him and announced that he was “heap big chief” and was going to have the boxwood for his wigwam.

Anne objected.  She had found the treehouse and it was hers; the others were to play there all they pleased; but she would go straight home unless the boxwood was to remain, as it had always been, her “private property,” as she proudly said.

For answer, Dunlop fitted an arrow on his bow and rushed in, yelling, “You squaw!  This is my papa’s place.  You get out of my wigwam.  Get out, I say.”

Without a word, Anne gathered up Honey-Sweet and marched off, with her chin in the air.  For a whole long week she did not come to ‘Roseland.’  Worst of all, on Saturday she played all afternoon with the other girls on the ‘Home’ grounds, without once looking over the hedge.

Arthur threw himself into Martha’s arms.  “I want my Anne,” he sobbed, “I want her to come back.  ’Lop’s a bad, bad boy to make my Anne go ’way.”

Shortly before teatime, Anne left the other girls and without seeming to see any one beyond the hedge, sat down just out of earshot and began to tell Honey-Sweet a story.  This was more than could be borne.  Arthur wailed aloud.

Suddenly Dunlop broke his way through the hedge, stopped just in front of Anne, and screamed:  “It’s your old house.  You come on.”

Anne looked at him but did not move.

He stamped his foot.  “Please!” he shouted fiercely.

“Good and all?  Private property?” asked Anne.

Dunlop nodded.

Anne rose.  “We better go through the gap,” she said in an offhand way. 
“Miss Emma’ll try to have me whipped if we break down the hedge.”

Dunlop trotted by her side in silence.  As they crossed the hedge, he slipped his grimy hand in hers.  “Mamma says we are going to the country next week,” he announced; “and I told her you’d have to go, too.”