"Well, Marie and Diana are, anyway." She looked slyly at Cedric. "Don't you think so, Cedric?"
"How can I tell whether they are any nicer, as you call it, than another kid whom I've never seen?" inquired Cedric reasonably.
"But didn't you like Marie?"
"She's all right."
Barbara giggled in the way most disliked by her family, the authorities of whom stigmatized the habit as "vulgar," and Cedric said severely:
"I shouldn't think decent girls would want to play with you at all, if you don't leave off that idiotic trick of cackling."
But Barbara, who was not at all easily crushed, continued to giggle silently at intervals.
"Why are you so silly?" Alex asked her crossly, as they were going to bed that night.
She and Barbara shared a room at Fiveapples Farm.
Barbara whined the inevitable contradiction, "I'm not silly," but added immediately, "you wouldn't be so cross, if you knew what I know. I expect you'd laugh too."