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And here is my overdue post:

I fighted with the hem of my dress. How was I to answer? Mr. and Mrs. North had taken care of that for me, explaining to every inquisitive inquirer from town that I was the cousin of some far off aunt in Europe who had died, and so they had taken me in. Pretty soon the word got round that I was the daughter of a botanist and a wild-animal tamer from India.

I was never good at lying — if I tried, I get this queer grin on my face and I speak in a strained voice. Yeah, it doesn’t work. But I couldn’t tell the truth either, could I? I mean, nobody really believed I was the daughter of bontinest and a wild-animal tamer from India. And if I tried to tell them I was the cousin of some far off aunt in Europe who had died, well… That would be lying. Mr. and Mrs. North had done the lying for me. And, as I said, I can’t lie efficiently. And I wanted friends.

There weren’t a whole lot of girls my age here, and I didn’t see them often. So I turned to these girls and said, “um, why don’t we go to the hay-loft?”

They agreed, and we trundled out into the snow and to the barn. Cicero hugged my side, eyeing the wolfhound, who patiently trotted besides his mistress. Cicero was shivering, but the hound looked fine.

We hurried to get out of the wind, and I shut the barn doors with the girls’ help. Then I told Cicero to sit, and tied him to the wall.

“Maybe I should do the same with Arrow (that is the dog’s name, right?)”

“Yeah,” I said. “We don’t need any blood on the floor right now.”

We climbed up into the loft. The hay was sweet and clean — and warm. We snuggled up in it, and then they looked at me expectantly. I took a deep breath, and decided to tell them. They probably wouldn’t believe me, and I would just have proven myself to be a nut-case. Oh well. My story would’ve come out sooner or later anyway.