‘But why mustn’t I?’ demanded Mary-Lou, standing very straight and square, her blue eyes looking levelly at Mother and Gran.
‘Because your mother says you mustn’t,’ retorted Gran with her usual crispness.
Mary-Lou glanced a little more steadily at her, but said nothing. That was the kind of remark you expected from Gran. She was a dear, and kind, and an absolute rock when you were in real trouble; but she did think such queer things about obedience, and tidiness, and keeping yourself ‘like a young lady, and not a young hooligan.’ Mother was not half so strict, thought Mary-Lou, who—at the age of nine, nearly ten—would have ruled her mother with a rod of iron had it not been for Gran. The old lady saw to it that her small grand-daughter was brought up in the way she should go. So, after that one steady look, Mary-Lou turned to her mother and waited for what was to come.
‘Oh, dear!’ began Mother in worried tones. ‘I don’t think Clem and Tony are quite the right kind of friends for you, Mary-Lou.’
‘But they are my friends,’ Mary-Lou stated simply. ‘I can’t not be friends with them, Mother. We’ve been friends since they came to Polquenel. Why aren’t they the right sort now when they were at first?’