“She isn’t in it with Florence Dombey,” said Kent.  “Florence is some old sport, she is.  Guess I’d better cut her down.”

It was remarkable that while on most occasions Lydia was the tenderest of mothers to Florence Dombey, she was, when the fever of “play and pretend” was on her, capable of the most astonishing cruelties.  During the game of pirates, Florence Dombey had been hung from a willow branch, in lieu of a yardarm, and had remained dangling there in the wind, forgotten by her mother.

Kent placed her in Patience’s carriage.  “I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” he said.  “I’ll go up the shore and get Smith’s flat boat.  We’ll anchor it out from the shore, and that’ll be the wreck.  We’ll swim out to her and bring stuff in.  And up under the bank there we’ll build the cave and the barricade.”

“Gee,” exclaimed Lydia, “that’s the best we’ve thought of yet.  I’ll be collecting stuff to put in the wreck.”

All during the golden August afternoon the game waxed joyfully.  For a long time, Margery sat aloof, playing with the baby.  But when the excavating of the cave began, she succumbed, and began to grovel in the sand with the other two.  She was allowed to come in as Friday’s father, and baby Patience, panting at her work of scratching the sand with a crooked stick, was entered as the Parrot.  Constant small avalanches of sand and soil from the bank powdered the children’s hair and clothes with gray-black dust.

“Gosh, this is too much like work,” groaned Kent, at last.  “I’ll tell you, let’s play the finding of Friday’s father.”

“I don’t want to be tied up in a boat,” protested, Margery, at once.

“Mardy not in boat,” chorused little Patience, toddling to the water’s edge and throwing in a handful of sand.

“Isn’t she a love!” sighed Margery.

“Huh, you girls make me sick,” snorted Kent.  “We won’t tie you in the boat.  We’ll bring the boat in and get you, then we’ll anchor it out where it is now, and—­and—­I’ll go get Smith’s rowboat, and Friday and I’ll come out and rescue you.”

Margery hesitated.  “Aw, come on!” urged Kent.  “Don’t be such a ’fraid cat.  That’s why us kids don’t like you, you’re such a silly, dressed-up doll.”

The banker’s daughter flushed.  Though she loved the pretty clothes and though the sense of superiority to other children, carefully cultivated by her mother, was the very breath of her nostrils, she had never been quite so happy as this afternoon when grubbing on an equality with these three inferior children.

“I’m not afraid at all and I’m just as dirty as Lydia is.  Go ahead with your old boat.”

They tethered Patience with Kent’s cord to one of the willow trees and Margery was paddled out several boat lengths from the shore and the great stone that served for anchor was dropped over.  Kent took a clean dive overboard, swam ashore and disappeared along the willow path.  Little Patience set up a wail.