"You're terribly narrow, Nora, to think that nobody's any good unless he comes from Boston."
"I didn't say so," replied Nora.
"No, but that's what you mean, and I'm surprised, Philip Blair, that a boy should be so awfully one-sided."
"Well, you'd better talk, Brenda Barlow," broke in Nora again. "Just see the way you treat Julia. If she'd been born in Boston——"
"I don't treat her," interrupted Brenda.
"No, that's just it, you don't treat her decently."
"Oh, I say," said Philip, from his place in front of the mantelpiece, "how queer girls are; do you always fight like this when you're together?"
"We don't fight like you boys," answered Edith, good-humoredly. "We don't knock each other down and run the risk of breaking one another's noses."
Philip looked over his shoulder in the glass. There was nothing the matter with his own shapely nose, and I doubt that he would have run any such risk as Edith suggested. Perhaps this was the reason why Philip was not a fighter. There was one good thing about the little disputes in which Brenda and Belle indulged. They very seldom lasted long. In the present instance the girls were ashamed of having shown temper before Philip. The latter, however, did not dwell on their weakness.
"Oh, say, did you hear about the time Will Hardon had with the Dicky, last week?" he asked.