Nancy knew Harriet was thinking that one vote could keep Doris out of the club.

"No. Let's play. I've got to be home for lunch and it's already ten-thirty." Nancy's voice was accusing and she meant it to be. She wanted Harriet to understand that she'd shortened their own time together by playing with Doris Bowman. Because she was still angry, her game was very poor. Harriet took both sets, the last one 4-0.

On the way home, Harriet chattered on about the new girl. "She's cute, don't you think? And what a tennis player."

"Oh, she's all right, I guess," said Nancy without enthusiasm. "But she thinks she's good, too."

"Well, gosh, she has a right to. She won the school trophy at Stony Brook. Only I don't think she acts snooty. She was lots of fun to play with."

"I've never yet known a girl from a private school who didn't think she was somebody." Snapped Nancy, smarting at Harriet's praise of Doris and her own annoyance at herself for having played such a rotten game. She know, too, that she was being unreasonable and nasty about a girl she hardly knew. Because she was secretly ashamed of herself, she treated Harriet to a strawberry soda at the Bulldog.

After lunch, Harriet brought over her latest Sinatra records and Nancy got out her Bing Crosby collection and they spent the afternoon playing them and engaging in their usual friendly battle over their favorites. They raided the cookie jar and then Harriet helped shell peas and peel potatoes for supper before going home. Nancy forgot all about Doris Bowman and her anger of the morning. No one was as much fun as Harriet. They saw each other every single day, even on Sunday because they went to the same church. Harriet had been her best friend for three years.

A couple of days later, they met Doris Bowman in the Bulldog. She was sitting at the counter alone having a sundae and Harriet said, "Come on over and sit with us in a booth." Doris accepted the invitation eagerly, and when Nancy realized that the new girl was lonely she felt more kindly toward her. They dawdled over their sundaes for nearly an hour, and listened to the juke box that a young couple kept feeding nickels. Doris confessed that she liked Bing better than Frankie, which made a bond with Nancy. When they sauntered homeward, Nancy decided she'd been hasty in her first judgment. Doris was cute and she was lots of fun.

"I live on the Boulevard, the big white house with the blue shutters. Why don't you both come over tomorrow afternoon and see my room ? Mother let me fix it up my self. I've got the walls simply plastered with movie stars' pictures," she invited.

"Gee, I'm sorry, Doris," replied Nancy, "but tomorrow's our club picnic."

"We're hiking out to the lake for a picnic," said Harriet. Then she grabbed Nancy's arm. "But why don't we bring Doris along? Penny Schwartz is bringing her cousin. It'd be O.K. with the girls wouldn't it?"

Nancy hesitated a second. "Why, yes, I guess so, Harriet."

"Oh, are you sure they'd want me?" asked Doris, looking from one to the other. Nancy knew she'd noticed that moment of hesitation.

"Sure I'm sure. You'll be my guest," cried Harriet expansively. "I'll pick you up at ten in the morning. Wear shorts or slacks and old shoes. I'll take sandwiches for you. The club's furnishing the dessert and drinks."

When they'd left Doris at the corner, Nancy walked along in silence. Then she said suddenly, "Why did you ask her to the picnic? It's really supposed to be for club members, Harriet."

"But Penny's cousin is coming, and the kids'll be crazy about Doris. I'll bet we can get her into the club at the next election of members. She'd be a swell addition."

Nancy said no more, but some of the kindly feeling she'd been having for the new girl ebbed, Doris was nice and the girls probably would like her. She liked her now, herself. But Harriet needn't be so frantic about her.

Instead of stopping by for Nancy next morning, Harriet had to go around by the Boulevard to get Doris, so Nancy started off for the club meeting place at the tennis courts feeling a bit lost. Harriet and Doris were late and arrived giggling over tow boys from a military school whom they'd met on the way.

"Boy, what wolves!" cried Harriet. "They whistled at us, but we just kept right on as if they didn't exist."

"They were really awfully cute in their uniforms." Said Doris, bright-eyed and laughing. "But did they know it!"

"You should have seen the look Doris gave them. Golly, she looked right through them as if they weren't there." Harriet beamed at Doris, and Nancy, feeling funny and left out, said impatiently, "O.K., so you knocked them cold, Tell me the gory details on the way. We're already late."

The picnic was fun, and Doris was a great success. She was a tireless hiker, she sang college songs she'd learned from her brother, and she gathered more than her share of firewood. The girls all liked her, but she was definitely Harriet's prize and Nancy, fed up with the way Harriet kept showing her off, snapped, "Really, Harriet, you act as if you'd invented her yourself."

"Well, I want her to have a good time," flared Harriet. "After all, she doesn't know the others."

On the way home Nancy and Harriet walked together and harmonized their school songs and Nancy was just beginning to feel natural again when Doris caught up with them, linked arms with both so she was in the middle, and begged Harriet to teach her the words. Nancy went to bed that night with a troubled feeling, a sort of ache in her throat that she didn't understand.