`` 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 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 XXXXX father , '' I exclaimed , springing anxiously to my feet , a sick , horrible feeling of fear running over me like a cool , rippling wave .
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