"Then your mother must have been Queen of the Fairies!" said her friend, rather prettily. "Johnny and Archie first met, I believe, upon the field of battle. There used to be a continuous warfare on in this neighborhood between what were known as the Alley Gang and the Av'noo Kids. We expected Johnny to be brought in any day a mangled corpse--he being the leader of the Av'noo Kids. One day the Alley Gang caught him and his cohorts rather depleted as to numbers, and were naturally engaged in wiping them off the face of the earth, when the paper-boy came up on his wheel. With a whoop he dropped wheel and papers and joined in the fray. The Alley Gang were getting the worst of it when policemen arrived--it seems some windows had been smashed. The other boys scattered, but the rescuer dared not desert his papers and so got caught; and Johnny came panting home to get Father to bail him out of jail. That's the first we heard of Archie Blair." "Odd that he didn't side with the Alley Gang, wasn't it?" commented Joan. "Why, don't you see?--the Av'noo Kids were getting the worst of it. That's Archie!..." Joan decided to be a little kinder to her protégé the next time she saw him. It is an odd fact that we frequently do not appreciate our possessions until others appear to value them unduly. CHAPTER XXIX Their next meeting occurred at the Carmichael house at dinner. Emily, with the approach of the Easter season, had one day announced her intention of giving a dinner in Joan's honor, greatly to the younger girl's pleasure. It meant that she had won not only the friendship of Emily, but that of her mother as well; a rather more difficult feat. Major Darcy was equally pleased with this compliment, which he characteristically accepted for himself. "It is very gratifying to have old friends take one's child to their hearts in this fashion--very gratifying! There are no better people in the State than the Carmichaels, my dear. It is true that I have seen less of the Judge than I could have wished since my return--we were school-boys together. But I felt that soon or late there was bound to be some recognition. A fine fellow, and a most able lawyer! Yes, yes. And his wife--charming, charming! Though a trifle stiff for my fancy. A _little_ more suavity of manner. She was a Dillingham, you know. Her father represented us at one time at the Court of St. James." "Oh! Is that why she's so airy?" commented Effie May. "Well, I don't mind airs if people have got a right to 'em, and nobody needs call on me who don't want to. I'm real glad you're getting in with that crowd, Joan. They're better than most 'old families'--they're still alive and kicking and right at the top. And you've done it all by yourself, too! Parties don't seem to do no good with their kind.... That's what comes of being born a lady yourself." Something both wistful and generous in this speech touched the girl.