"They're real mean!"
"They simply grab them!"
"And we haven't had our turns at the tennis courts!"
"And Winnie borrowed my paint-box and won't give it back!"
Agnes held up a hand to stop the general clamor.
"That'll do!" she decreed. "I'm going to sort you out and give you each to your fairy godmother, and you may pour your woes into her ears, and she'll try her level best to right your wrongs. No, you mayn't say whom you'd like to have. It's we who'll do the choosing, thanks! Anybody who's not satisfied can walk off and she won't get a champion at all or any more candy either. I mean what I say."
Such an awful threat reduced the juniors to order, and they submitted quite peaceably to be apportioned among their various benefactresses. Irene secured Little Flaxen, Lorna had a pair of solemn-eyed sisters, Peachy pounced upon the liveliest trio and proclaimed them as her triplets, and Delia adopted the two youngest as twins.
"You can come to us at a pinch," explained Agnes, "but please remember we're Fairy Godmothers, Limited. We'll fight any just crusade, but we're not going to write your exercises for you, or pull you out of scrapes when you don't deserve it. That's not our function. There, you understand? Hand the candy again, somebody. There's another piece each all round at least, and if there are any over I'll throw them up and you shall scramble for them."
The immediate effect of this mission of the Camellia Buds was a decided improvement in the conditions of the juniors. Next morning, at lunch-time, a stern-faced contingent mounted guard over the biscuits, and when Bertha and Mabel, plainly bent on piracy, sauntered down the room, they were told certain unpalatable home truths, and ignominiously put to rout.