charge them to me. Give away and use what you can, but _buy_. We
owe it to the town and we must do it. Can you promise to take part of
the job for me?"

"I'll try, Father," I answered doubtfully. "I like the kind of clothes
the girls wear, so I will get mine in the stores, and I can give
presents to all who will allow it."

"That's it--presents--presents to your friends," said Father in a
relieved tone of voice, and I could see that he had no idea of the
burden he had put on my shoulders. "Now fade away, and let me work,
kiddie. You are all to the good!"

As I walked along home my heart was so heavy down in my toes that my
feet almost stuck to the pavement--not only about the task of spending
the money, but about the secret. However, I reasoned it up into my
breast again. If my father is one of the men that magazines write
against and say is too rich to be good, he has always told me the
truth; and when he said I hadn't done the great secret any damage I
believed him. If he can trust Rogers as himself, I can, too.

But after this, when I know anything that all the world can't know I'm
going to wear a horsehair ring, like Belle makes Mamie Sue do, to
remind me not to forget and tell. I thought I was stronger-minded than
that, but I see I'm not. You see, leather Louise, I must be more
trustworthy than just any girl; for if I'm untrustworthy, then it will
be a tragedy, because it will prove that I inherited it and so be an
evidence against Father in my own mind and the world's too.

Since I have been with Roxanne so much, and seen so many things which