asked Dan . `` It ai n't my business to tell him things , '' retorted Peter . `` I 'm hired to do what I 'm told , and I do it . But I can have my own opinion all the same . It 's going to be a broiling hot day . '' We were all in the orchard , except Felix , who had gone to the post-office . It was the forenoon of an August Saturday . Cecily and Sara Ray , who had come up to spend the day with us -- her mother having gone to town -- were eating timothy roots . Bertha Lawrence , a Charlottetown girl , who had visited Kitty Marr in June , and had gone to school one day with her , had eaten timothy roots , affecting to consider them great delicacies . The fad was at once taken up by the Carlisle schoolgirls . Timothy roots quite ousted `` sours '' and young raspberry sprouts , both of which had the real merit of being quite toothsome , while timothy roots were tough and tasteless . But timothy roots were fashionable , therefore timothy roots must be eaten . Pecks of them must have been devoured in Carlisle that summer . Pat was there also , padding about from one to the other on his black paws , giving us friendly pokes and rubs . We all made much of him except Felicity , who would not take any notice of him because he was the Story Girl 's cat . We boys were sprawling on the grass . Our morning chores were done and the day was before us . We should have been feeling very comfortable and happy , but , as a matter of fact , we were not particularly so . 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 XXXXX the other 's presence , and each was desirous of convincing the rest of us that the other was less than nothing to her .
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