“Yes, thank you,” said Stella, sedately.

Marjorie giggled outright.  “It seems so funny,” she said, by way of explanation, “to have you say ‘yes, thank you’ to us children; I only say it to grown people; don’t you, Molly?”

“I don’t say it at all,” confessed Molly; “I mean to, but I ’most always forget.  It’s awful hard for me to remember manners.  But it seems to come natural to Stella.”

Stella looked at her, but said nothing.  She was a very quiet child, and somehow she exasperated Marjorie.  Perhaps she would not have done so had they all been out of doors, playing together, but she sat on a chair by Marjorie’s bedside with her hands folded in her lap, and her whole attitude so prim that Marjorie couldn’t help thinking to herself that she’d like to stick a pin in her.  Of course she wouldn’t have done it, really, but Marjorie had a riotous vein of mischief in her, and had little use for excessive quietness of demeanor, except when the company of grown-ups demanded it.

But Stella seemed not at all conscious that her conduct was different from the others, and she smiled mildly at their rollicking fun, and agreed quietly to their eager enthusiasms.

At last Jane came in with the tea-tray, and the sight of the crackers and milk, the strawberries and little cakes, created a pleasant diversion.

Stella sat still in her chair, while Marjorie braced herself up on her pillows, and Molly, who was sitting on the bed, bounced up and down with glee.

Marjorie was getting much better now, so that she could sit upright and preside over the feast.  She served the strawberries for her guests, and poured milk for them from the glass pitcher.

Molly and Marjorie enjoyed the good things, as they always enjoyed everything, but Stella seemed indifferent even to the delights of strawberries and cream.

She sat holding a plate in one hand, and a glass of milk in the other, and showed about as much animation as a marble statue.  Even her glance was roving out of the window, and somehow the whole effect of the child was too much for Marjorie’s spirit of mischief.

Suddenly, and in a loud voice, she said to Stella, “Boo!”

This, in itself, was not frightful, but coming so unexpectedly it startled Stella, and she involuntarily jumped, and her glass and plate fell to the floor with a crash; and strawberries, cakes, and milk fell in a scattered and somewhat unpleasant disarray.

Marjorie was horrified at what she had done, but Stella’s face, as she viewed the catastrophe, was so comical that Marjorie went off into peals of laughter.  Molly joined in this, and the two girls laughed until the bed shook.

Frightened and nervous at the whole affair, Stella began to cry.  And curiously enough, Stella’s method of weeping was as noisy as her usual manner was quiet.  She cried with such loud, heart-rending sobs that the other girls were frightened into quietness again, until they caught sight of Stella’s open mouth and tightly-closed but streaming eyes, when hilarity overtook them again.