one rose to face creation?
There's nothing to do but to make the best of it. Good-night,
Madelon."

"Good-night," said Madelon. The color had come back to her cheeks,
and she looked back at him proudly, standing beside her bread-bowl on
the hearth.

Lot passed out, turning his delicate face over his shoulder with a
subtle smile as he went. Richard clapped the door to after him with a
jar that shook the house, and shot the bolt viciously. "I'll get my
gun and follow him if you say so, and then I'll find Burr Gordon," he
said, turning a furious face to his sister.

"Would you make me a laughing-stock to the whole town?" said she.
"Rake down the fire; it's time to go to bed."

She looked as proudly at her brother as she had done at Lot. The
resemblance between the two faces faded a little as they confronted
each other. A virile quality in the boy's anger made the difference
of sex more apparent. He looked at her, holding his wrath, as it
were, like a two-edged sword which must smite some one. "If I thought
you cared about that man that has jilted you--and I've heard the talk
about it," said he, "I'd feel like shooting _you_."

"You needn't shoot," returned Madelon.

The boy looked at her as angrily as if she were Burr Gordon. Suddenly
her mouth quivered a little and her eyes fell. The boy flung both his
arms around her. "I don't care," he said, brokenly, in his sweet
treble--"I don't care, you're the handsomest girl in the town, and
the best and the smartest, and not one can sing like you, and I'll
kill any man that treats you ill--I will, I will!" He was sobbing on
his sister's shoulder; she stood still, looking over his dark head at
the snow-hung window and the night outside. Her lips and eyes were
quite steady now; she had recovered self-control when her brother's
failed him, as if by some curious mental seesaw.

"No man can treat me ill unless I take it ill," said she, "and that
I'll do for no man. There's no killing to be done, and if there were
I'd do it myself and ask nobody. Come, Richard, let me go; I'm going
to bed." She gave the boy's head a firm pat. "There's a turnover in
the pantry, under a bowl on the lowermost shelf," said she; and she
laughed in his passionate, flushed face when he raised it.

"I don't care, I will!" he cried.

"Go and get your turnover; I saved it for you," said she, with a
push.

Neither of them dreamed that Lot Gordon had been watching them,
standing in a snow-drift und