“You make your resolutions to suit yourself and I’ll make mine to suit myself,” said Felix defiantly.
“I shall never get drunk,” wrote Peter painstakingly.
“But you never do,” said the Story Girl in astonishment.
“Well, it will be all the easier to keep the resolution,” argued Peter.
“That isn’t fair,” complained Dan. “If we all resolved not to do the things we never do we’d all be on the Roll of Honour.”
“You let Peter alone,” said Felicity severely. “It’s a very good resolution and one everybody ought to make.”
“I shall not be jealous,” wrote the Story Girl.
The Story Girl coloured and nodded. “Of one thing,” she confessed, “but I’m not going to tell what it is.”
“I’m jealous sometimes, too,” confessed Sara Ray, “and so my first resolution will be ‘I shall try not to feel jealous when I hear the other girls in school describing all the sick spells they’ve had.’”
“Goodness, do you want to be sick?” demanded Felix in astonishment.
“It makes a person important,” explained Sara Ray.
“I am going to try to improve my mind by reading good books and listening to older people,” wrote Cecily.
“You got that out of the Sunday School paper,” cried Felicity.
“It doesn’t matter where I got it,” said Cecily with dignity. “The main thing is to keep it.”
Felicity tossed her beautiful golden head.
“I told you I wasn’t going to make any resolutions. Go on yourself.”
“I shall always study my grammar lesson,” I wrote--I, who loathed grammar with a deadly loathing.
“I hate grammar too,” sighed Sara Ray. “It seems so unimportant.”
Sara was rather fond of a big word, but did not always get hold of the right one. I rather suspected that in the above instance she really meant uninteresting.
“I won’t get mad at Felicity, if I can help it,” wrote Dan.
“I’m sure I never do anything to make you mad,” exclaimed Felicity.
“I don’t think it’s polite to make resolutions about your sisters,” said Peter.
“He can’t keep it anyway,” scoffed Felicity. “He’s got such an awful temper.”
“It’s a family failing,” flashed Dan, breaking his resolution ere the ink on it was dry.
“I’ll work all my arithmetic problems without any help,” scribbled Felix.
“I wish I could resolve that, too,” sighed Sara Ray, “but it wouldn’t be any use. I’d never be able to do those compound multiplication sums the teacher gives us to do at home every night if I didn’t get Judy Pineau to help me. Judy isn’t a good reader and she can’t spell AT ALL, but you can’t stick her in arithmetic as far as she went herself. I feel sure,” concluded poor Sara, in a hopeless tone, “that I’ll NEVER be able to understand compound multiplication.”