Hart, who was that Christmas angel I squashed?"

"Vad? Was Vad in on it, mum? I never saw her." Wally straightened up
with a fresh chunk of cake in his hand. "Was she scared?"

"Yes," his mother admitted reluctantly, "I guess she was, all right.
First the squaws--and, poor girl, I made her shake hands all round--and
then Grant here, acting like a wild hyena--"

"Say, PLEASE don't tell me who she is, or where she belongs, or anything
like that," Grant interposed, with some sarcasm. "I smashed her flat
between me and the wall, and I scared the daylights out of her; and I'm
told I should have appeared at my best. But who she is, or where she
belongs--"

"She belongs right here." Phoebe's tone was a challenge, whether she
meant it to be so or not. "This is going to be her home from now on; and
I want you boys to treat her nicer than you've been doing. She's been
here a week almost; and there ain't one of you that's made friends with
her yet, or tried to, even. You've played jokes on her, and told her
things to scare her--and my grief! I was hoping she'd have a softening
influence on you, and make gentlemen of you. And far as I can make out,
just having her on the place seems to put the Old Harry into every one
of you! It isn't right. It isn't the way I expected my boys would act
toward a stranger--a girl especially. And I did hope Grant would behave
better."

"Sure, he ought to. Us boneheads don't know any better--but Grant's
EDUCATED." Wally grinned and winked elaborately at his mother's back.

"I'm not educated up to Christmas angels that look as if they'd been
stepped on," Grant defended himself.

"She's a real nice little thing. If you boys would quit teasing the life
out of her, I don't doubt but what, in six months or so, you wouldn't
know the girl," Phoebe argued, with some heat.

"I don't know the girl now." Grant spoke dryly. "I don't want to. If I'd
held a tomahawk in one hand and her flowing locks in the other, and
was just letting a war-whoop outa me, she'd look at me--the way she did
look." He snorted in contemptuous amusement, and gave a little, writhing
twist of his slim body into his trousers. "I never did like blondes," he
added, in a tone of finality, and started up the steps.

"You never liked anything that wore skirts," Phoebe flung after him
indignantly; and she came very close to the truth.

CHAPTER IV. THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL

Phoebe watched the two unhappily, sighed when they disappeared