`` I guess it depends a good deal on whether you 're inside or outside the fires , '' I said . `` Oh , Andrew did n't really mean it , of course . He just said it to sound smart and make us stare . The Marrs are all like that . But anyhow , I 'm going to keep on praying that something will happen to excite the Story Girl . I do n't believe there is any use in praying that Felicity will speak first , because I am sure she wo n't . '' `` But do n't you suppose God could make her ? '' I said , feeling that it was n't quite fair that the Story Girl should always have to speak first . If she had spoken first the other times it was surely Felicity 's turn this time . `` 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 XXXXX , 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 .
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