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 Bob Stevens and I can always have plenty of fun."

"Oh, Chet!" Bess thinks Bob Stevens is about the worst there is, and so does Mother. I don't like him so awfully well, myself, he's too rowdy, and it's catching; but we do have fun, such as it is.

"Well," I said, "what else is there for me to do? If you're going to make a chum of that other girl, I've got to go with somebody, haven't I? I'm not going to flock by myself, and I'm not going to play gooseberry all the time, either. I know how it is when two girls get together."

Bess sat still, nibbling the end of her thumb, a little habit she has when she's thinking. "Chet," she said at last; "let's be right down honest and sensible. You know I don't want her to come here any more than you do;—but we can't help her coming, just the same. Here we've been ugly and quarrelling, and that certainly isn't the other girl's fault; so we'd better look at ourselves and find out what there is in us that makes things seem horrid."

I stared at Bess hard. She was always a great hand to think, and to dig out reasons and causes;