m
not under Baumberger's orders, if the rest of the bunch is. And I wish
you'd tell Peaceful I want to talk to him, Mother Hart--will you? Tell
him to ditch his guardian angel somehow. I'd like to see him on the
quiet if I can, but if I can't--"

"Can't be nice, and forgiving, and repentant, and--a dear?" Evadna had
crept over to him by way of the rocks behind the pond, and at every
pause in her questioning she pushed him forward by his two shoulders.
"I'm so furious I could beat you! What do you mean, savage, by letting a
lady stay all afternoon by herself, waiting for you to come and coax her
into being nice to you? Don't you know I H-A-ATE you?" She had him by
the ears, then, pulling his head erratically from side to side, and she
finished by giving each ear a little slap and laid her arms around his
neck. "Please don't look at me that way, Aunt Phoebe," she said, when
she discovered her there inside the door. "Here's a horrible young
villain who doesn't know how to behave, and makes me do all the making
up. I don't like him one bit, and I just came to tell him so and be
done. And I don't suppose," she added, holding her two hands tightly
over his mouth, "he has a word to say for himself."

Since he was effectually gagged, Grant had not a word to say. Even when
he had pulled her hands away and held them prisoners in his own, he said
nothing. This was Evadna in a new and unaccountable mood, it seemed to
him. She had certainly been very angry with him at noon. She had accused
him, in that roundabout way which seems to be a woman's favorite
method of reaching a real grievance, of being fickle and neglectful and
inconsiderate and a brute.

The things she had said to him on the way down the grade had rankled in
his mind, and stirred all the sullen pride in his nature to life, and
he could not forget them as easily as she appeared to have done. Good
Indian was not in the habit of saying things, even in anger, which he
did not mean, and he could not understand how anyone else could do so.
And the things she had said!

But here she was, nevertheless, laughing at him and blushing adorably
because he still held her fast, and making the blood of him race most
unreasonably.

"Don't scold me, Aunt Phoebe," she begged, perhaps because there was
something in Phoebe's face which she did not quite understand, and so
mistook for disapproval of her behavior. "I should have told you last
night that we're--well, I SUPPOSE we're sup