`` 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 grown-ups , 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 . The Story Girl finished her wreath and put it on . The buttercups drooped over her high , white brow and played peep with her glowing eyes . A dreamy smile hovered around her poppy-red mouth -- a significant smile which , to those of us skilled in its interpretation , betokened the sentence which soon came . `` I know a story about a man who always had his own opinion -- '' The Story Girl got no further . We never heard the story of the man who always had his own opinion . Felix came tearing up the lane , with a newspaper in his hand . When a boy as fat as Felix runs at full speed on a broiling August forenoon , he has something to run for -- as Felicity remarked . `` He must have got some bad news at the office , '' said Sara Ray . `` Oh , I hope nothing has happened to father , '' I exclaimed , springing anxiously to my feet , a sick , horrible feeling of fear running over me like a cool , rippling wave . `` It 's just as likely to be good news he is running for as bad , '' said the Story Girl , who was no believer in meeting trouble half way . `` He would n't be running so fast for good news , '' said Dan cynically . We were not left long in doubt . The orchard gate flew open and Felix was among us . One glimpse of his face told us that he was no bearer of glad tidings . He had been running hard and should have been rubicund . Instead , he was `` as pale as are the dead . ''
I could not have asked him what was the matter had my life depended XXXXX it .
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