Edna was silent for a moment. “Mother,” she said presently, “it is all Clara Adams’s doings. If she wouldn’t speak to us nor let the other girls play with us, why, what could we do?”
“I really don’t know, my darling, we’ll talk of that directly. Go on with your story.”
“Well, so Agnes found out they were getting up a club and didn’t want us in it, so she said we could have a club, too, and we’re going to begin this afternoon—no, to-morrow afternoon. Mrs. Ramsey let Jennie go home with Dorothy to stay till to-morrow and she is going to send the automobile for her. She comes to school in the automobile every morning. I wish we had one then we wouldn’t have to stay in town all the week.”
“Dear blessed child, I am afraid Clara Adams is turning your head.”
“Clara? why she doesn’t even speak to me.”
“All the same you are beginning to care more for the things that are important to her than ever you did before. Never mind, we’ll talk about that later. Is that all?”
“It’s about all, for we haven’t had the club meeting yet. Agnes says she will start it and be the president for a month. Celia is going to be the secretary and when we know just what to do and how to carry it on then they will resign and some of us younger girls will be the officers.”
Mrs. Conway smiled to hear all this grown-up talk, but she looked a little serious a moment after.
Edna watched her face. “Don’t you approve of it, mamma,” she asked anxiously.
“Of the club? Oh, yes, if it is the right kind of one. I will ask Celia about it, but what I don’t like is that you should start it in a spirit of trying to get the better of another girl, though I can see that it is the most natural thing in the world for you to feel as you do, and I can see that Clara has really brought it on herself, but I do want my dear little girls to be charitable and above the petty meanness that is actuating Clara.”