"Yes?" said Eleanor, encouragingly, when Bessie stopped. "Don't be
afraid to tell us what you think, Bessie. We just want to get to the
bottom of this strange fit of hers, you know."

"Well, it seems awfully mean to say it," said poor Bessie, "when you've
been so lovely to us, but I thought maybe someone had joked about her
in some way. You know she sometimes pronounces words in a funny fashion,
as if she'd only read them, and had never heard anyone speak them. In
Hedgeville lots of people used to laugh at her for that. I think that's
why she stopped going to school. And I thought, perhaps, that was what
was the matter--"

"It might have happened, of course," said Eleanor, "and without anyone
meaning to hurt her feelings. I'd be very careful myself, but some of
the other people around the house wouldn't know, of course. But, no,
that won't explain it, Bessie. Not this time."

"Are you sure, Eleanor!" asked Jamieson.

"Positively," she answered. "Because, after you went off, she was out
here with me for quite a long time. Then I was called inside, and I'm
quite sure no one from the house saw her at all after that until I found
her crying. She'd been outside on the porch all the time--"

"Aha!" cried Jamieson, then. "If no one in the house here talked to her,
someone from outside must have done it. Listen, Bessie. She wouldn't go
off that way just from brooding, would she, just from thinking about
things?"

"No, I'm quite sure she wouldn't, Mr. Jamieson. She's felt bad two or