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 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 '' XXXXX each other , and consequently there had been something rotten in the state of Denmark .
If because before by from in of that to with