"I have half a sovereign in the Savings Bank, but I can't take it out until after I am seven. I wish I could, for I could lend it to you to give Hilda a wedding present."
"I wish you could," said Judy. "I'd like awfully to give her something. You might tell me what you have got, Babs."
"It's some darning-cotton," said Babs in a whisper. "I buyed it last week with twopence-halfpenny; you remember the day I went with Mrs. Sutton to town. She said it was a very useful thing, for Hilda will want to mend Jasper's socks, and if she hasn't darning-cotton handy maybe he'll scold her."
"He wouldn't dare to," said Judy, with a frown; "she shan't mend his horrid socks. Why did you get such a nasty wedding present, Babs?"
A flush of delicate color spread all over Babs' little fair face. She winked her blue eyes hard to keep back the tears which Judy's scathing remarks were bringing to the surface, and said, after a pause:
"It's not a horrid present, it's lovely; and anyhow"—her voice becoming energetic as this happy mode of revenge occurred to her—"it is better than yours, for you has got nothing at all."
"Oh, I'll have something when the day comes," replied Judy, in a would-be careless tone.
"But you hasn't any money."
"Money isn't everything. I'll manage, you'll see."
From this moment Judy's whole heart and soul were absorbed in one fierce desire to give Hilda a present which should be better and sweeter and more full of love than anybody else's.