"Yes, Mother, Carol Day and I play off our match this afternoon. If I
beat her I'll win those candlesticks--"

"They will look very pretty on your dresser," smiled Mrs. Lee. "I know
what you mean, Mother--that I'm just playing for the candlesticks alone
and I'm not at all, for when I do win one I sort of hate taking a
prize. But I would like to beat Carol because she does play such a good
game!"

"That's the spirit, Bab. Where are the little girls?"

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about, Mother," Barbara, balancing
herself on the arm of a chair, tapped her toe with the putter. "Peggy
and Alice have gone off to Molly Sawyer's and they've left Keineth
home. I don't think they're treating her a bit nicely!"

"Why didn't she go with them?"

"I don't think Peggy asked her to go. She and Molly were going to play
tennis on the Sawyer courts with Joan Crate, a girl that's out here
from town, and Keineth felt left out. Peggy told her she couldn't play
well enough to play with them and that it spoiled a game playing with
beginners, anyway!"

Mrs. Lee stitched in silence. Barbara went on:

"And I heard Billy the other day teasing her about her father. He
laughed at her when she said her father was a soldier, only the kind
that didn't wear a uniform, and he told her there weren't any soldiers
like that! I think you ought to speak to the children, Mother."