Alene danced with joy.
"Then I'm elected!"
"You are now a member of the Happy-Go-Luckys and your name is duly inscribed on the books!" said Laura, in her judicial tone.
"And they all put in the white drops! How lovely of them!"
"Yes, all but Ivy; she put hers in her mouth to taste it, and before she knew, it was gone!"
"Dear me, and what did she do then?"
"She whispered it to me at the last minute, just after I got out the little mustard box where we cast our votes, and so I allowed her to put in a button instead. After it was over, some of us wanted to save the gumdrops for the first meeting you attended, but those greedy youngsters had devoured 'em all but two which I managed to keep."
Laura pressed into Alene's hand a small tinsel-paper package.
"You must eat half of each," said Alene, wisely surmising that it was Laura's own portion that had been saved, and resolving to leave for another day the blue ribbon-tied box of candy Uncle Fred had given her that morning, which she had just placed in the grass at the foot of a tree, awaiting Laura's arrival.
Seated on the green beneath the trees, they ate the gumdrops, whose scarcity perhaps made them seem the more delicious, and exchanged confidences concerning themselves and the Happy-Go-Luckys.