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But Sally sought the rector in his study, and she was trembling. “Edward,” she cried out, regardless of her husband’s sermon, “something must be done now.”

“Why, what is the matter, Sally?”

“People are — calling on her.”

“Calling on whom?”

“Big sister — Solly!” Sally explained.

“Well, don’t worry, dear,” said the rector. “Of course we will do something, but we must think it over. Where is the child now?”

“She and Jim are out in the garden. I saw them pass the window just now. Jim is such a dear boy, he tries hard to be nice to her. Edward Patterson, we ought not to wait.”

“My dear, we must.”

Meantime Jim and Content Adams were out in the garden. Jim had gone to Content’s door and tapped and called out, rather rudely: “Content, I say, put on your hat and come along out in the garden. I’ve got something to tell you.”

“Don’t want to,” protested Content’s little voice, faintly.

“You come right along.”

And Content came along. She was an obedient child, and she liked Jim, although she stood much in awe of him. She followed him into the garden back of the rectory, and they sat down on the bench beneath the weeping willow. The minute they were seated Jim began to talk.

“Now,” said he, “I want to know.”

Content glanced up at him, then looked down and turned pale.

“I want to know, honest Injun,” said Jim, “what you are telling such awful whoppers about your old big sister Solly for?”

Content was silent. This time she did not smile, a tear trickled out of her right eye and ran over the pale cheek.

“Because you know,” said Jim, observant of the tear, but ruthless, “that you haven’t any big sister Solly, and never did have. You are getting us all in an awful mess over it, and father is rector here, and mother is his wife, and I am his son, and you are his niece, and it is downright mean. Why do you tell such whoppers? Out with it!”

Content was trembling violently. “I lived with Aunt Eudora,” she whispered.

“Well, what of that? Other folks have lived with their aunts and not told whoppers.”

“They haven’t lived with Aunt Eudora.”

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Content Adams, and you the rector’s niece, talking that way about dead folks.”

“I don’t mean to talk about poor Aunt Eudora,” fairly sobbed Content. “Aunt Eudora was a real good aunt, but she was grown up. She was a good deal more grown up than your mother; she really was, and when I first went to live with her I was ‘most a little baby; I couldn’t speak — plain, and I had to go to bed real early, and slept ‘way off from everybody, and I used to be afraid — all alone, and so –“

“Well, go on,” said Jim, but his voice was softer. It WAS hard lines for a little kid, especially if she was a girl.

“And so,” went on the little, plaintive voice, “I got to thinking how nice it would be if I only had a big sister, and I used to cry and say to myself — I couldn’t speak plain, you know, I was so little — ‘Big sister would be real solly.’ And then first thing I knew — she came.”

“Who came?”

“Big sister Solly.”

“What rot! She didn’t come. Content Adams, you know she didn’t come.”

“She must have come,” persisted the little girl, in a frightened whisper. “She must have. Oh, Jim, you don’t know. Big sister Solly must have come, or I would have died like my father and mother.”

Jim’s arm, which was near her, twitched convulsively, but he did not put it around her.

“She did — co-me,” sobbed Content. “Big sister Solly did come.”

“Well, have it so,” said Jim, suddenly. “No use going over that any longer. Have it she came, but she ain’t here now, anyway. Content Adams, you can’t look me in the face and tell me that.”