adys said, "are too many to go calling. Margery's too
little for our crowd anyway, and, besides, that would make three
from one family. We had just better start before she comes down."

For a moment the twins looked doubtful; then, as usual, agreed.
Thereupon, all three cautiously tiptoed off the porch and down
the lawn. Before they reached the street, Margery was after them,
calling: "Wait a minute, Katherine! Wait, Alice!"

The twins had barely time to slip through the gate and hear
Gladys's low injunction, "Don't let her come," when Margery was
upon them.

"You can't come with us, Margery," Katherine began, with an
assumption of innocence.

"Why, Katherine, you promised I could."

"That was for to-morrow," suggested Alice weakly.

Margery looked from her sisters to Gladys, who was staring vaguely
across the street. Her excessive aloofness was suspicious, and
Margery instantly jumped to conclusions.

"I bet I know what's the matter. That old Gladys Bailey doesn't
want me. But I'm going anyhow! I don't care what she says! I'm
going!"

[Illustration: "I don't care what she says! I'm going!"]

And, throwing herself against the gate, Margery pushed and kicked
and shook, while Katherine and Alice, holding it shut from the
outside, blushed with embarrassment that Gladys should hear, and
whispered fiercely, "Margery, keep still!"

But Margery would not keep still. At that moment she was
remembering against Gladys many a former indignity. How she hated
her--how she had always hated her for her prim, deceitful,
grown-up manners, for her patronizing airs, and, most of all, for
the strange influence she wielded over Margery's own sisters and
brother. It was bad enough that the twins should hang upon her
words, but worse, far worse, that even Henry, that model of
discretion, should be so completely taken in as to look upon
Gladys with an interest which bordered dangerously near to
admiration. Secure in the esteem of Katherine and Alice, and
conscious of her sway over Henry, Gladys saw no reason to
conciliate the youngest member of the family. "Margery's too
little for our crowd," she would say, and, while Margery fumed
and fought, would calmly reiterate the statement until it came to
be accepted as fact. Gladys never fought. As on this afternoon,
she was always the general, who, so to speak, directed from afar
the onslaughts of the actual combatants.

Though outnumbered two to one, Margery had the spirit of a host