r?"

"Oh, can't you find something original to say?" snapped Mollie irascibly.
"Seems to me that's all I hear from morning to night. 'Oh, Mollie, what's
the matter--what's the matter, Mollie?' till I could scream."

"Oh, please excuse me," said Betty, with a little freezing quality in her
voice. "I thought I might help; but if that's the way you feel about it--"

Quick as a flash Mollie had run to her and, repentant, thrown her arms
about the Little Captain's neck.

"Please forgive me, Betty," she cried. "I'm perfectly horrid, and I know I
don't deserve a friend like you. But--well, I'm just a beast, that's all,"
she finished lamely.

Betty laughed and patted her shoulder comfortingly.

"I guess we all are once in a while," she said, adding with a return of
her old cheeriness, "Now, prove your repentance by 'fessing up. It's sure
to make you feel better."

"Well, it wasn't anything much," Mollie replied, her face clouding again.
"Only--I had a quarrel with--with--somebody--"

"How very explicit," drawled Grace, who had entered the room in time to
hear the last part of the sentence.

Mollie stiffened, and Betty sent Grace a warning glance.

"Go on, Mollie dear, I'm awfully interested," Betty hurriedly interposed.
"Because, you see," she added ruefully, "I just had a quarrel myself."

"You did," cried the three at once, and crowded around her eagerly.

"Oh, Betty, who with?" asked Amy, too excited to bother about grammar.
Betty quarreled so seldom with anybody that when she did the girls
considered it an event.

"I'll tell you about it after Mollie has 'fessed up," evaded Betty,
seeming a trifle sorry for her confidence.

"Oh, did Mollie have one, too?" cried Grace delightedly, while Mollie sent
her a hostile glance.

"Well, you needn't be so glad about it," she retorted glumly. "Maybe it
wouldn't seem quite so interesting if it were you and Roy."

"Well, how do you know it wasn't?"

The three girls stared.

"What was that you said?" demanded Betty weakly. "I don't think I quite--"

"I said," returned Grace calmly, and pronouncing each word with
exaggerated distinctness, "that Roy and I have had a quarrel, which
probably would make yours look like nothing at all."

"Grace!" they cried in chorus, "do you mean it?"

For answer Grace turned to the mirror and began to arrange her hair.

"Ask Roy," she flung at them over her shoulder.

Behind her the girls looked at each other dumbly, struggling with