anding transfixed, spoke at
last, looking calmly at her excited brothers, and her voice, so evenly
modulated and gentle, had an instantaneous effect. The dreadful din
and noisy dancing abruptly ceased, while the rebels regarded her with
much the same sullen stare as one encounters from a drove of Highland
cattle when molested.

'Where's Price? Have you seen him?' suspiciously asked Geoff. 'Has he
been reporting us?'

'He'd better not try on that game, I tell you, the coward that he is!'
growled Alick.

'I don't know about Mr. Price being the coward,' pointedly said Theo.
'It isn't usually the fashion among brave men for two to set on one, is
it, boys dear?' she added tranquilly.

Geoff gasped. Then his mouth, opening to sharply retort, shut with a
click. He knew that his sister, though only a girl, was perfectly
right. It had been an unfair, uneven conflict. Theo put her finger on
the blot with remarkable accuracy for a girl; two to one must always be
unfair, and a rush of shame tingled over him.

Not so Alick. He would not allow himself to be convinced.

'I'd like to know what right has Price to grind us down?' he muttered,
gloomily frowning at Theo. 'He's an oppressor, that's what he is! But
I'll soon let him see; I'll pitch into him, if he dares to show his
white face here again, I tell you! Down with tyrants!'

'He isn't likely to show his face here,' said Theo, loftily regarding
the inflamed countenance of her brother. 'That is,' she continued,
'not unless he receives an ample apology from each of you for this
morning's work.'

'Apology!' shouted--almost yelled--Alick. 'Never! Don't you believe
it, Miss Theo! You think you can do most things, but you won't bend us
to that!' Rub-a-dub on the dining-table hammered the furious boy's
toes and heels, as he broke out into another hornpipe.

'Won't you come down, dears?' again pleaded Theo as gently as before.
'Come to the tea-house, and tell me exactly what the trouble was from
the very beginning,' she said persuasively.

'Oh, we'll tell you!' eagerly assented the boys, with one voice; and
scrambling down from the table, each slipped an arm through Theo's, and
walked away with her, both talking at once, excitedly endeavouring to
make the best of their case in her eyes. They were genuinely fond of
their elder sister; principally, it may have been, because she never
scolded or flouted them, however badly they behaved. Theo's way was
different