ight
not be all they had hoped.

"We'll show him," said Split.

"A patronizing, affected Irishman!" snorted Sissy, informally now that
her official duties were ended.

"He thinks he'll come out here and run the whole family," said Fom,
aggrieved.

"And show off how rich he is, and turn up his nose at things," said Bep,
"and boss us. I'd like to see him try it!"

"And be shocked at what we don't know, and what we do do, and what we
haven't seen and learned. I dare him just to say 'abroad' to me!" cried
Kate, with a flash in her eye.

A chorus of groans went up from the indignant assemblage.

"Aunt Anne," put in Frank, a bit puzzled, "says he's the savior of the
fam'ly. What's a--"

"The savior of the family! The savior!" mocked Sissy, genuflecting
sarcastically. "The savior of the family will have you sent to a
convent, Split, 'where young ladies are taught to behave properly.' The
savior'll get a nursemaid for you, Frank, and you'll have to go about
always holding her hand and wearing socks in the English style that'll
show your bare, naked legs and--"

"I won't! I won't!" Tears of terror stood in Frank's eyes.

"The savior'll put a stop, Fom, to your--Kate Madigan, are you changing
your dress?" Sissy's voice fell suddenly, and she put the question in a
calm, magisterial tone that sent every eye in the room on a query toward
the eldest Madigan.

Kate turned at bay. She had slipped off her waist, and the red was
flushing her long throat and small, spirited face. "Well, miss, suppose
I am?" she demanded hotly.

"She always changes her dress for dinner, you know," came in a sarcastic
sneer from Split. "She wants to show our dear cousin how swell we are.
We all wear low-necked rigs, and father has his swallowtail, and--"

"Shall I bring you the curling-iron, Kathy?" mocked Sissy.

"Don't you want a rose for your hair, Kathleen?"

"Or a ribbon here and there, as Mrs. Ramrod says, Kitty?"

"Aunt Anne says," said Frank, feeling that this was some sort of game
and that her turn had come, "he's going to mawwy you. Is he, Kate?"

The white cashmere with the red-embroidered rosebuds slipped from Kate's
hand. All innocent of malicious intent, Frank's shot had scored. The cry
of the Pack that leaped about her could not touch Kate after this. She
was frozen in by maidenly prudery, by childish self-consciousness, by
Madigan perversity. When the bell rang she went in to dinner in her old
pink gingham, her head hig