“Well, I believe it would puzzle Him,” said Cecily, out of the depths of her experience with Felicity.

Peter, as was to be expected, took Felicity’s part, and said the Story Girl ought to speak first because she was the oldest.  That, he said, had always been his Aunt Jane’s rule.

Sara Ray thought Felicity should speak first, because the Story Girl was half an orphan.

Felix tried to make peace between them, and met the usual fate of all peacemakers.  The Story Girl loftily told him that he was too young to understand, and Felicity said that fat boys should mind their own business.  After that, Felix declared it would serve Felicity right if the Story Girl never spoke to her again.

Dan had no patience with either of the girls, especially Felicity.

“What they both want is a right good spanking,” he said.

If only a spanking would mend the matter it was not likely it would ever be mended.  Both Felicity and the Story Girl were rather too old to be spanked, and, if they had not been, none of the grown-ups would have thought it worth while to administer so desperate a remedy for what they considered so insignificant a trouble.  With the usual levity of grown-ups, they regarded the coldness between the girls as a subject of mirth and jest, and recked not that it was freezing the genial current of our youthful souls, and blighting hours that should have been fair pages in our book of days.

The Story Girl finished her wreath and put it on.  The buttercups drooped over her high, white brow and played peep with her glowing eyes.  A dreamy smile hovered around her poppy-red mouth—­a significant smile which, to those of us skilled in its interpretation, betokened the sentence which soon came.

“I know a story about a man who always had his own opinion—­”

The Story Girl got no further.  We never heard the story of the man who always had his own opinion.  Felix came tearing up the lane, with a newspaper in his hand.  When a boy as fat as Felix runs at full speed on a broiling August forenoon, he has something to run for—­as Felicity remarked.

“He must have got some bad news at the office,” said Sara Ray.

“Oh, I hope nothing has happened to father,” I exclaimed, springing anxiously to my feet, a sick, horrible feeling of fear running over me like a cool, rippling wave.

“It’s just as likely to be good news he is running for as bad,” said the Story Girl, who was no believer in meeting trouble half way.

“He wouldn’t be running so fast for good news,” said Dan cynically.

We were not left long in doubt.  The orchard gate flew open and Felix was among us.  One glimpse of his face told us that he was no bearer of glad tidings.  He had been running hard and should have been rubicund.  Instead, he was “as pale as are the dead.”  I could not have asked him what was the matter had my life depended on it.  It was Felicity who demanded impatiently of my shaking, voiceless brother: