his horrid dog—I don't want to know his name."
"Well," said Robert in an aggrieved tone, "I want to know why we can't play with you?"
"We're playing grown-up games," Sara gave back grandly.
"In grown-up games, aren't there school-teachers and aren't there fathers?" Robert wanted to know.
"Yes," Sara replied with bitter logic, "in grown-up games they have those things, but we don't have to have them. We're only playing. We don't need you. You wait for your turn, and then you can have the swing," said she with maddening condescension.
This was the crux of it. They didn't need the boys any more. Not needing them, they didn't want them, and the boys, those free spirits forever escaping from the clutches of small girl animals, resented this state of things.
"Aw, come on!" the proud Robert was heard to beseech, "just let us play with you a little."
"No, we won't, Robert Marcey," responded his sister. "When you play with us you hurt us; you break everything; you make everything dirty; you want everything your own way."
She appealed to her mother again.
"Why should we let Robert in when we're having a good time like we are, and, anyway, Father said we don't have to?"
Perhaps Alice Marcey had the germs of feminism in her—who can tell? Maybe instead of being a feminist she had a sense of humor. At any rate her response was:
"No, darling, they don't need to play with you until you want them to."
"Well, we don't want them to," was Sara's pronunciamento; "we like it this way. Now we're happy—then
