If I had answered what I wanted to about Belle Kirby, I should have
been very much ashamed by this time. Like a flash it came over me that
it would be a poor way to begin being friends with Roxanne to make her
see what a freak one of her best friends was, so I held the explosion
back.

"She was mistaken, Roxanne," I said; and I couldn't help being a
little sad as I spoke the truth out to her, for I am fifteen years
old, and fifteen are a good many years to live lonely. "I haven't any
friends in all the world. We have traveled everywhere trying to get
mother well, but I've had no chance to make friends. This is the first
time a girl ever talked to me in my life, and I never did talk to a
boy--and I never want to."

"Oh, Phyllis, how dreadful!" said Roxanne; and she gave me such a hug
around the neck that it hurt awfully, only I liked it. It did feel
funny to have somebody sniffing tears of sympathy against your cheek,
and I didn't know exactly what to do. Petting has to be learned by
degrees and you can't come to it suddenly. But I was happy.

And I'm happier to-night than I ever was in my life, only still scared
quite a little, too. I wonder how the boys and girls are going to like
Roxanne's being friends with me. How can they hate me if I haven't
ever done anything to them? It makes me nervous to think about it, and
that combined with the secret and the accident that didn't happen to
Lovelace Peyton make my writing so shaky that I may never be able to
read it.

This is the accident and the secret. Of course, I knew that there
never was such a glorious person born in the world as Roxanne's grown