The Story Girl was sitting on the mint beside the well-house, weaving herself a wreath of buttercups. Felicity was sipping from the cup of clouded blue with an overdone air of unconcern. Each was acutely and miserably conscious of the other’s presence, and each was desirous of convincing the rest of us that the other was less than nothing to her. Felicity could not succeed. The Story Girl managed it better. If it had not been for the fact that in all our foregatherings she was careful to sit as far from Felicity as possible, we might have been deceived. We had not passed a very pleasant week. Felicity and the Story Girl had not been “speaking” to each other, and consequently there had been something rotten in the state of Denmark. An air of restraint was over all our games and conversations. On the preceding Monday Felicity and the Story Girl had quarrelled over something. What the cause of the quarrel was I cannot tell because I never knew. It remained a “dead secret” between the parties of the first and second part forever. But it was more bitter than the general run of their tiffs, and the consequences were apparent to all. They had not spoken to each other since. This was not because the rancour of either lasted so long. On the contrary it passed speedily away, not even one low descending sun going down on their wrath. But dignity remained to be considered. Neither would “speak first,” and each obstinately declared that she would not speak first, no, not in a hundred years. Neither argument, entreaty, nor expostulation had any effect on those two stubborn girls, nor yet the tears of sweet Cecily, who cried every night about it, and mingled in her pure little prayers fervent petitions that Felicity and the Story Girl might make up. “I don’t know where you expect to go when you die, Felicity,” she said tearfully, “if you don’t forgive people.” “I have forgiven her,” was Felicity’s answer, “but I am not going to speak first for all that.” “It’s very wrong, and, more than that, it’s so uncomfortable,” complained Cecily. “It spoils everything.” “Were they ever like this before?” I asked Cecily, as we talked the matter over privately in Uncle Stephen’s Walk. “Never for so long,” said Cecily. “They had a spell like this last summer, and one the summer before, but they only lasted a couple of days.” “And who spoke first?” “Oh, the Story Girl. She got excited about something and spoke to Felicity before she thought, and then it was all right. But I’m afraid it isn’t going to be like that this time. Don’t you notice how careful the Story Girl is not to get excited? That is such a bad sign.” “We’ve just got to think up something that will excite her, that’s all,” I said. “I’m--I’m praying about it,” said Cecily in a low voice, her tear-wet lashes trembling against her pale, round cheeks. “Do you suppose it will do any good, Bev?” “Very likely,” I assured her. “Remember Sara Ray and the money. That came from praying.”