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There once was a girl who lived alone in the woods. No one knew how she had gotten to live alone, for most girls her age lived with their parents or, at least, an appointed guardian, but this girl had none. She lived in a home made of stone with a roof made of thatch. No one knew who had built the house, and they assumed the girl could not have built it herself, so craftily made it was. Townspeople often filled their empty times by turning conversations to this girl alone in the woods, but their ideas roamed around and around without getting anywhere. The conversations always ended with a helpless shake of the head and wishes that someone, somewhere, would do something.