they've been wrong, no matter how well they know it. I haven't anything
to forgive you for--so don't let's talk any more about that. Everyone
makes mistakes. If I thought anyone had treated me as you thought I had
treated you to-night I'd have been angry, too."

Poor Dolly sighed disconsolately.

"You're the best friend I ever had, Bessie," she said. "I make everyone
angry with me, and when I say I'm sorry, they pretend that they've
forgiven me, but they haven't, really, at all. That's why I said that
about your still being angry with me. I thought you must be. I really am
going to try to be more sensible."

And so the little misunderstanding, which might easily, had Bessie been
less patient and tactful, have grown into a quarrel that would have
ended their friendship before it was well begun, was smoothed over, and
Dolly and Bessie, tired but happy, went upstairs to their room together,
and were asleep so quickly that they didn't even take the time to talk
matters over.

Eleanor Mercer, standing in the big hall of the farm house as the girls
went upstairs, smiled after Dolly and Bessie.

"I think you thought I was foolish to put those two in a room together,"
she said to Mrs. Farnham, the motherly housekeeper, whom Eleanor had
known since, as a little girl, she had played about the farm.

"I wouldn't say that, Miss Eleanor," said Mrs. Farnham. "I didn't see
how they were going to get along together, because they were so
different. But it's not for me to say that you're foolish, no matter