“You think I’m a molly?” asked Scott in a curiously still voice.

“Yes, I do.”

“Oh, Scott!” cried Geraldine, pushing in between them, “you’ll have to hammer him well for that——­”

Naida turned and shoved her brother aside: 

“I don’t want you to fight him,” she said.  “I like him.”

“Oh, but they must fight, you know,” explained Geraldine earnestly.  “If we didn’t fight, we’d really be what you call us.  Put on Scott’s clothes, Naida, and while our brothers are fighting, you and I will wrestle to prove that I’m not a mollycoddle——­”

“I don’t want to,” said Naida tremulously.  “I like you, too——­”

“Well, you’re one if you don’t!” retorted Geraldine.  “You can like anybody and have fun fighting them, too.”

“Put on those clothes, Naida,” said Duane sternly.  “Are you going to take a dare?”

So she retired very unwillingly into the hedge to costume herself while the two boys invested their fists with the soft chamois gloves of combat.

“We won’t bother to shake hands,” observed Scott.  “Are you ready?”

“Yes, you will, too,” insisted Geraldine; “shake hands before you begin to fight!”

“I won’t,” retorted Scott sullenly; “shake hands with anybody who calls me—­what he did.”

“Very well then; if you don’t, I’ll put on those gloves and fight you myself.”

Duane’s eyes flew wide open and he gazed upon Geraldine with newly mixed emotions.  She walked over to her brother and said: 

“Remember what Howker told us that father used to say—­that squabbling is disgraceful but a good fight is all right.  Duane called you a silly name.  Instead of disputing about it and calling each other names, you ought to settle it with a fight and be friends afterward....  Isn’t that so, Duane?”

Duane seemed doubtful.

“Isn’t it so?” she repeated fiercely, stepping so swiftly in front of him that he jumped back.

“Yes, I guess so,” he admitted; and the sudden smile which Geraldine flashed on him completed his subjection.

Naida, in her boy’s clothes, came out, her hands in her pockets, strutting a little and occasionally bending far over to catch a view of herself as best she might.

“All ready!” cried Geraldine; “begin!  Look out, Naida; I’m going to throw you.”

Behind her the two boys touched gloves, then Scott rushed his man.

At the same moment Geraldine seized Naida.

“We are not to pull hair,” she said; “remember!  Now, dear, look out for yourself!”

Of that classic tournament between the clans of Mallett and Seagrave the chronicles are lacking.  Doubtless their ancestors before them joined joyously in battle, confident that all details of their prowess would be carefully recorded by the family minstrel.

But the battle of that Saturday noon hour was witnessed only by the sparrows, who were too busy lugging bits of straw and twine to half-completed nests in the cornices of the House of Seagrave, to pay much attention to the combat of the Seagrave children, who had gone quite mad with the happiness of companionship and were expressing it with all their might.