ll put on those gloves and fight you
myself."

Duane's eyes flew wide open and he gazed upon Geraldine with newly mixed
emotions. She walked over to her brother and said:

"Remember what Howker told us that father used to say--that squabbling
is disgraceful but a good fight is all right. Duane called you a silly
name. Instead of disputing about it and calling each other names, you
ought to settle it with a fight and be friends afterward.... Isn't that
so, Duane?"

Duane seemed doubtful.

"Isn't it so?" she repeated fiercely, stepping so swiftly in front of
him that he jumped back.

"Yes, I guess so," he admitted; and the sudden smile which Geraldine
flashed on him completed his subjection.

Naida, in her boy's clothes, came out, her hands in her pockets,
strutting a little and occasionally bending far over to catch a view of
herself as best she might.

"All ready!" cried Geraldine; "begin! Look out, Naida; I'm going to
throw you."

Behind her the two boys touched gloves, then Scott rushed his man.

At the same moment Geraldine seized Naida.

"We are not to pull hair," she said; "remember! Now, dear, look out for
yourself!"

Of that classic tournament between the clans of Mallett and Seagrave the
chronicles are lacking. Doubtless their ancestors before them joined
joyously in battle, confident that all details of their prowess would be
carefully recorded by the family minstrel.

But the battle of that Saturday noon hour was witnessed only by the
sparrows, who were too busy lugging bits of straw and twine to
half-completed nests in the cornices of the House of Seagrave, to pay
much attention to the combat of the Seagrave children, who had gone
quite mad with the happiness of companionship and were expressing it
with all their might.

Naida's dark curls mingled with the grass several times before Geraldine
comprehended that her new companion was absurdly at her mercy; and then
she seized her with all the desperation of first possession and kissed
her hard.

"It's ended," breathed Geraldine tremulously, "and nobody gained the
victory and--you _will_ love me, won't you?"

"I don't know--I'm all dirt." She looked at Geraldine, bewildered by the
passion of the lonely child's caresses. "Yes--I do love you, Geraldine.
Oh, _look_ at those boys! How perfectly disgraceful! They _must_
stop--make them stop, Geraldine!"

Hair on end, grass-stained, dishevelled, and unspeakably dirty, the boys
were now sparring