"The party was a great success, eh?" asked Ralph at the breakfast table the next morning. "I judged so, because it was one o'clock before I could leave Dad's office to get some lunch. He and Dick insisted on holding me there till quarter past."
Brother looked at Sister. Sister looked at Brother. They had both forgotten they meant to telephone Ralph at half-past twelve!
"Don't worry over it, Brother," said Ralph, laughing. "No serious harm was done, old chap. I made Dad tell me the mysterious reason of the wait, and when you didn't 'phone in we all three concluded the party had been too much for you. I'm glad you liked the dog."
"Oh, yes!" Brother seized upon this safe topic. "It is the nicest dog, Ralph. And I did mean to say thank you,' only I forgot."
After Daddy Morrison and Ralph and Dick had gone off to the station, Brother and Sister began to have queer feelings. Yes'm, they both felt "somehow different," as Brother said.
"I don't want to clear off the table," complained Sister, drawing pictures on the tablecloth1 with a fork, a practice which Molly had always sternly forbidden.
"Neither do I," agreed Brother. "Let's go out in the barn and play."
"Jimmie won't like it," suggested Sister, taking up a cup so carelessly that some of the coffee left in it slopped over on the clean cloth.
"Jimmie doesn't own the barn," sniffed2 Brother crossly. "I guess we can just play in it without hurting any of his stuff."
"Here, here, what are you talking so long about?" demanded Molly good-naturedly.
She came to the dining-room door and inspected the table critically.
"Just as I thought," she said grimly. "Too much party yesterday! Sister, give me that cup and stop marking the cloth. Run off and play, both of you, till you get over being cross. I'd rather do the work myself than listen to you grumble3."
Thus dismissed, Brother and Sister wandered off to the barn. They ought to have felt happy with the extra time for play, but, for some reason, they were decidedly uncomfortable.
"Everybody's busy," grumbled4 Brother. "Nobody cares what we do. Louise and Grace are sewing, and Mother is going to make strawberry jam. Let's try the rings, Betty."
They were inside the old barn now, and the swinging rings had always fascinated Sister. But she knew that Jimmie had said they were not to touch them, and indeed Daddy Morrison had warned the children not to play in the barn unless some of the older boys were with them.
"It is really Jimmie's and Ralph's gymnasium," he had explained. "They know how to use the apparatus5, and you don't. When you are older, Jimmie will teach you and you may play there all you wish."
Sister looked longingly6 at the rings when Brother suggested them.
"Where's Jimmie?" she asked cautiously.
"Up in his room studying," answered Brother confidently.
Jimmie had been "conditioned" in the June examinations, and now spent part of every vacation day studying so that he might take another test before school opened in the fall.
"All right," agreed Sister, assured that Jimmie was not likely to walk in upo............