make friends, but she had promised Janet, and she must keep her word. Heigho!

"And lookee here, Margery, here are all your jaw-breakers. I ain't et one—honest, I ain't."

Margery looked, and, lo, in his hand lay four jaw-breakers, three of them as black and shiny as the moment they had left the little candy store, the fourth sucked down only to the pink.

"I couldn't help tasting one of them, Margery, but I only sucked it a few minutes—honest, I did. And here," Willie Jones continued, offering her a little bag, "is a cake I bought for you with my last cent."

"Oh, Willie, did you really?"

"You just got to take it, Margery. I want you to. I'm awful sorry I was so mean to you, but, don't you know, when that old Janet McFadden butted in, I just couldn't help it. I always did hate a girl like her! But I was going to give you your nickel, all right. I meant to all along. Of course I did! Wasn't it your nickel?"

"Oh, Willie, and did you really buy that cake for me with your own cent, and you didn't eat up all my jaw-breakers?"

"Of course you know I was just fooling about that nickel, don't you, Margery?"

There is no telling what Margery really knew down deep in her heart, and it didn't in the least matter. All that mattered now was this: Here was Willie Jones, genuinely ashamed of what he had done, and man enough to say so. Margery forgave him instantly.

"But, Willie, I just won't eat a bite of that cake unless you take half. Here, let me break it in two."

After they had eaten the cake, she insisted likewise upon sharing the recovered jaw-breakers.

"And I'm going to take the one you've partly sucked for one of mine, because I've had a whole one already, and you haven't had any."

Willie Jones protested, but this time Margery had her way, and in a few moments, after the friendliest of partings, he was started home with a fresh jaw-breaker in his cheek and another in his pocket.

Of course, without a thought, Margery had broken her promise to Janet. Well, what if she had? Margery gave her shoulders an impatient little shrug. Who, pray, was Janet McFadden that she should come between friends? To be sure, in her way, Janet was a good, kind creature, and she meant well, but wasn't she a trifle excitable and a little too emphatic, don't you think? On the whole, too, her outlook on life seemed rather limited. There were certain things you never could expect her to understand. Come to think of it, she didn't look like a girl who received many valentines. It might be just as well if Margery never saw her again, for explanations would be difficult.

Not so, though, with Rosie O'Brien! If Margery ever met Rosie alone, she could explain to Rosie, and Rosie, she felt sure, would understand at once. Rosie had bright blues eyes and pretty hair that blew about her face in soft, alluring ringlets. Rosie without a doubt would understand.

Poor Janet McFadden! Margery really felt sorry for Janet as she thought of her going through life weighted down with such a grievance. Of course, it was awfully good of her, the way she had espoused Margery's cause. Poor thing, she was probably still fuming over Margery's wrongs at this very moment, when Margery herself, sucking hard at Willie Jones's half-finished jaw-breaker, which she was in hopes of concluding before dinner, was feeling anything but injured and down-trodden. Perhaps, though, it was the poor thing's pleasure to keep herself always stirred up.

For some reason Margery was not hungry for dinner, but she forced herself to eat enough to avert paternal questioning. The last jaw-breaker she was saving for bed. She could take half an hour's sweet comfort from it before going to sleep, and still have something to look forward to upon awakening next morning.

While she waited after dinner until she could, in decency, retire, she sat a while within the family circle, quietly musing upon the day's adventures. What a strange, delightful, interesting sort of a place the world was, to be sure, with all its fiery Janet McFaddens, and sweet Rosie O'Briens, and paradoxical Willie Joneses! My but she was glad that she was alive!

And she really was sorry for Janet. If she could only make her see——

"Well, after all, Margery, what do you think about it?"

Her father was looking at her with a quizzical expression, but his question chimed in so well with her own thoughts that before she realized what she was saying, Margery answered:

"I don't care if they do act mean sometimes—I like 'em!"