"Well, I can't help it if I did, and I don't remember promising, anyway. That birthday book's going down to the sale, and if you want it, you'll just have to buy it. There!"
"You mean thing!" blazed Monica. "Just because you're head girl, you think you can do as you like. Keep your old birthday book, and sell it to anybody you can. I shan't buy it! But I'll pay you out for this—see if I don't! I think you're perfectly hateful, Lorraine! I wish you'd go away to a boarding school, or to a college like Rosemary. I don't want you here at home, anyway!"
"All right, draw it mild!" said Lorraine, who was well accustomed to her younger sister's outbursts of temper.
"You really did promise poor Cuckoo that Kate Greenaway birthday book," remarked Mrs. Forrester later in the evening.
"I can't remember anything at all about it, Mother," said Lorraine impatiently. "Cuckoo makes such an absurd fuss. Surely she might be ready to give up something for the prisoners of war. It's not good for her always to get her own way! She's really so absurdly spoilt!"
"Somebody else likes her own way occasionally!" suggested Mrs. Forrester, with uplifted eyebrows.
"Well, you can't say I'm spoilt! The middle girl never is. It's Rosemary and Monica who get all the attention in this family!" declared Lorraine, flouncing out of the room in a state of mind bordering on rebellion.
She wrapped up the birthday book in white tissue paper, and packed it the first of all her articles for the sale. The best of us have our faults, and there was a strain of obstinacy in Lorraine's disposition. She and Monica had waged war before this, on occasion. They did not speak to each other at supper.
"What a nice, cheerful thing it is to have two thunder-clouds sitting at the table!" commented Mrs. Forrester. "It's so pleasant for the rest of us, isn't it?"
"Mind the milk doesn't turn sour!" chuckled Mervyn. "You girls are the limit!"