, tried to resist, but of
course could not get into an attitude for doing so while he pulled her
so fast. The end of it was, that she lost her balance and fell, thus
tearing her hair from his grasp.

I, being some distance away, picked up an apple and flung it at the
persecutor's head, which I missed by half an inch. Before I could
follow the apple, Philip had taken the work out of my hands.

"You are a savage," said Phil, in a low voice, but with a fiery eye,
confronting Ned at close quarters.

"And what are you?" replied young Faringfield promptly. "You're a
beggar, that's what you are! A beggar that my father took in."

For a moment or two Phil regarded his insulter in amazed silence; then
answered:

"If only you weren't her brother!"

Here Madge spoke up, from the ground on which she sat:

"Oh, don't let that stop you, Phil!"

"I sha'n't," said Phil, with sudden decision, and the next instant the
astounded Ned was recoiling from a solid blow between the eyes.

Of course he immediately returned the compliment in kind, and as Ned
was a strong fellow, Phil had all he could do to hold his own in the
ensuing scuffle. How long this might have lasted, I don't know, had
not Fanny run between, with complete disregard of her own safety,
calling out:

"Oh, Phil, you mustn't hurt Ned!"

Her interposition being aided on the other side by little Tom, who
seized Ned's coat-tails and strove to pull him away from injuring
Philip, the two combatants, their boyish belligerence perhaps having
had enough for the time, separated, both panting.

"I'll have it out with you yet!" said Master Ned, short-windedly,
adjusting his coat, and glaring savagely.

"All right!" said Phil, equally out of breath. Ned then left the
field, with a look of contempt for the company.

After that, things went on in the old pleasant manner, except that
Ned, without any overt act to precipitate a fight, habitually treated
Phil with a most annoying air of scorn and derision. This, though
endured silently, was certainly most exasperating.

But it had not to be endured much of the time, for Ned had grown more
and more to disdain our society, and to cultivate companions superior
to us in years and knowledge of the world. They were, indeed, a smart,
trick-playing, swearing set, who aped their elders in drinking,
dicing, card-gambling, and even in wenching. Their zest in this
imitation was the greater for being necessarily exercised in secret
corne