great stubbly bunch of hair sticking out on one side, and though he
walks a little lame, he can hop and skip like a grasshopper, faster
than any of the boys, and leap up a wall in a moment, and grin--oh
most frightfully. Have you ever seen him, mamma?"

"I think so. I saw a poor boy, who seemed to me to have had a
stroke of some sort when he was an infant."

"But, madam, that would not make him so spiteful and malicious!"

"If every one is against him and treats him as a wicked mischievous
elf, it is only too likely to make him bitter and spiteful. Nay,
Anne, if you come back stuffed with old wives' tales, I shall not
allow you to go home with Lucy Archfield."

The threat silenced Anne, who was a grave and rather silent little
person, and when she mentioned it to her friend, the answer was,
"Did you tell your mother? If I had told mine, I should have been
whipped for repeating lying tales."

"Oh then you don't believe it!"

"It must be true, for Madge knew it. But that's the way always if
one lets out that one knows more than they think."

"It is not the way with my mother," stoutly said Anne, drawing up
her dignified little head. And she kept her resolution, for though
a little excited by her first taste of lively youthful
companionship, she was naturally a thoughtful reticent child, with a
character advanced by companionship with her mother as an only