me and was laughing at her description of how she came home from
school one day and found old Uncle Pompey, who is as black and old as
a human being can be and is all the servant Roxanne has to help her,
cooking dinner with a piece of newspaper pasted in strips all over his
face, which was Lovelace Peyton's remedy for neuralgia.

But just as I was enjoying myself so as to be almost unconscious I saw
Belle and Mamie Sue and Tony Luttrell coming around the corner of the
street past the front gate of Byrd Mansion and down toward the
cottage. Nobody knows how hard it is for me to see every nice body my
own age pass right by my gate in a procession to see Roxanne when I
can't go, too.

Tony didn't see me standing by the garden fence, and he gave the funny
little whistle that he calls the Raccoon whistle for the Palefaces and
which he always whistles when he wants to signal something to one of
the girls. Then suddenly they all saw me, and that politely enduring
look came over all three faces at once, though Mamie Sue's face is so
jolly and round by nature that it is very hard to prim it down
suddenly, and I don't believe she would always trouble to put it on
for me, only Belle seems to demand it of her as an echo of her
sentiments toward me. Some people can't seem to be sure of themselves
unless they can get somebody else to echo them and I think that is why
Belle has to keep poor Mamie Sue at her elbow all the time.

But when I saw the politeness plaster spread itself over all their
faces at the sight of me enjoying myself like any other girl, I just
turned away wearily and started back along my own garden path, back to
my own house which I felt that I ought not to be living in. But
something sweet happened to me before I left that makes me feel nice