The three girls were nearly the same age and the closest friends, and
Betty probably spent nearly as much of her waking time, at the cottage
as she did in her own home, for whenever she was lonely or bored, or,
tired perhaps of having too much done for her, she had been used to run
across the street to play or work with her friends from the time they
were children. Mrs. O'Neill had never seemed very much older than her
daughters and had always been called "Mary" by the three girls.

Now Betty reached over and laid one and lightly on Polly. "Don't say we
hate no another just because we quarrel now and then and both have bad
tempers. I never hate Polly, do I Mary?"

But before Mrs. O'Neill could answer, Polly suddenly faced fiercely
about. "I hate you to-night, Betty," she insisted, and then to make her
words entirely unlike her actions, slipped one arm around her friend.
"Oh, you know that I don't really mean I hate you, I only mean that I am
horribly envious and jealous of your having all the money you want and
being able to do things without worry, not just things for yourself, but
things for other people." And Polly bit her lips and ceased speaking,
both because of the note of warning in her mother's face and because the
brightness had died away from Betty's.

"I wish you would understand, Polly, that just having things does not
necessarily make one happy; I often think it must be nicer to be poor
and to have to help like you and Mollie do. This afternoon I was
feeling quite forlorn myself, as I had a kind of headache and no one
came to see me, and then just like magic from out our haunted chamber
there appeared well, I can hardly call her a good fairy, she was too
homely, but at least a girl who told me of something so delightful that