And the larger girl said: ``Yes, she is, too. She is my-own-dear-
sister!''

The smaller little girl shook her black curls and said: ``She is my
own-dear-owny-downy-dear-sister!''

In all of her life Bessie Bell had never heard anything like that.

And all the other little girls who were playing joined in and said:
``Bessie Bell doesn't know what she is talking about. Of course you
are sisters. Everybody knows you are sisters!''

Bessie Bell was distressed to be told that she did not know what she
was talking about--and she knew so much about Sisters.

So she began to cry, very softly.

Then she stopped crying long enough to say: ``But I never saw
Sisters like that before!''

Then she took up her crying again right where she left off.

Then a little boy--but he seemed a very large boy to Bessie Bell
with his long-striped-stocking-legs--said to Bessie Bell: ``No,
Bessie Bell, they are not Sisters like Sister Helen Vincula and the
Sisters that you know, but they are just what they say they are--
just own dear sisters.''

Then came to Bessie Bell that knowledge that we are often times slow
in getting: she knew all of a sudden--that she did not know