Her voice, shrill beyond compare, could be heard—and by a sensitive ear heard painfully—far above the bellowing and the criticism. Her “Hay-there-Mister-_I’ll_-show-you!” was both impetuous and continuous; and she covered more ground than any of the boys. Floored again, not once but many times, she recovered herself by a method of her own; the feet were quickly elevated as high as possible, then brought down, while a simultaneous swing of the shoulders threw the body forward; and never for an instant did she lose her up-and-at-’em spirit. She devised a new manner of bumping—charging upon a boy, she would turn just at the instant of contact, and back into him with the full momentum acquired in the charge. Usually they both fell, but she had the advantage of being the upper, which not only softened the fall for her but enabled her to rise with greater ease because of her opponent’s efforts to hoist her from him. Now, here was a strange thing: the addition of this blithe companion seemed to dull the sport for those who most keenly loved it. In proportion as her eagerness for it increased, their own appeared to diminish. Dozens of times, probably, she was advised to “cut it out,” and with even greater frankness requested to “get on out o’ here!” Inquiries were directed to her, implying doubts of her sanity and even of her consciousness of her own acts. “Hay, listen!” several said to her. “Do you think you know what you’re doin’?” Finally she was informed, once more by implication, that she was underweight—though here was a paradox, for her weight was visibly enough to have overthrown the informer, who was Laurence. But this was the second time she had done it, and his warmth of feeling was natural. “Get off o’ me,” he said, and added the paradoxical appraisement of her figure. His words were definite, but to the point only as reprisal for her assault; Daisy Mears was properly a person, not a “thing”; neither was she “old,” being a month or so younger than Laurence; nor did his loose use of another adjective do credit to his descriptive accuracy. It was true that Daisy’s party manners had lacked suavity, true that her extreme vivacity had been uncalled-for, true that she was not beautiful; but she was no thinner than she was stout, and she must have wished to insist upon a recognition of this fact. She was in the act of rising from a sitting posture upon Laurence when he used the inaccurate word; and he had struggled to his hands and knees, elevating her; but at once she sat again, with violence, flattening him. “_Who’s_ skinny?” she inquired. “You get up off o’ me!” he said fiercely.