I won't have any of the money you take from those poor people,
nor will Pearl. I'd rather be a beggar. And I know I'd feel worse than a
beggar, if we took her place from her. Oh, how can you, how dare you
work against Mr. Grey when he is so good? Hasn't Joe Smith's father ever
told you to love your enemies?"

"Periwinkle," protested his aunt weakly. For the first time in her life
she felt utterly helpless and incapable of reply.

"Periwinkle Toddles!" she repeated, but she could not meet the look in
his reproachful grey eyes. His great-uncle Jeoffrey recovering first
from the shock finally came to her aid.

"Boy," he thundered. "What do you know of this? In my day children
didn't speak until they were told to do so. The young rascal needs a
sound thrashing, Hetty."

But Miss Hetty had been so affected by the childish rebuke that she
could not find it in her heart to be angry with her nephew.

"Think how the child was raised, Uncle," she pleaded.

"Peri, didn't the--the Fat Woman ever tell you to respect your elders?"

"Yes, Aunt Hetty, I think so," the boy replied, surprised at unexpected
softness of her tone. "Least ways she told us to respect everybody that
was worthy of it. She was a very brilliant woman," he added, turning to
his Uncle Eldon with a rare smile. And then for a moment the mask that
hid the soul of that man was lifted, for he replied with a sudden and
unusual warmth: "At any rate she deserves credit for training a boy,
whom I would be glad to call my son."

It was too much for Periwinkle. Tears suddenly filled his eyes. He
wanted to thank his good, kind uncle but he could not let them see him
in tears. Turning his back abruptly on the company and starting for the
door, he said in muffled tones:

"I must find sister--But, Aunt Hetty, if it's for her and me you want to
take that money from Mrs. Farwell, please, please don't. We'd much
rather not and--" he stopped at the door and turned about for his final
thrust, "don't you think that Jesus would much rather you wouldn't?"

He was gone and silence reigned for a time. It was Jeoffrey, as usual,
who broke it.

"Perhaps, Hetty, we had better not be too hasty with that mortgage," he
said as if almost ashamed to express any feeling of charity toward the
Greys.

"I've already decided that," was her curt reply.

Eldon looked at his sister in approval and the "poor relative" in the
corner was so pleased that, forgetting for once to be cautious, he