hat he would do
well not to thrust himself obtrusively into the family circle. Perhaps,
also, a vague desire to placate the "powers that be" had made him pay
unusual attention to his face and nails and hair. He was very well
groomed--for Teddy--and he tried to assume a perfectly casual air, as he
came down the stairs.

Martha caught sight of him from the kitchen, and shook her head
ominously. She had heard enough to know that storm signals were out.

"Dat po' chile!" she mourned, "he sho am goin' like a lam' to de
slo'ter!"

CHAPTER VI

TEDDY'S BANISHMENT

Teddy slipped in like a ghost. That is, as far as noise was concerned.
If he could also have had the other ghostly quality of being invisible,
it would have suited him to a dot.

He drew out his chair and was about to sit down, when his father lifted
his hand.

"Stop!" he said, and there was a tone in his voice that was not often
heard. "You don't sit down at this table to-night."

Teddy stared at him, mortified and abashed. With all eyes turned toward
him, he felt as though he would like to sink through the floor.

"I mean it," said his father. "Go straight to your room and stay there.
I'll have something to say to you later on. But before you go, I want
you to apologize to your Uncle Aaron for the danger you put him in this
afternoon."

Teddy turned toward his uncle, and the sour smile he saw on the latter's
thin lips made him almost hate his relative.

"Of course, I'm sorry," he blurted out sullenly. "I told him so, down at
the bridge. He knows well enough, that I didn't mean----"

"That will do now," interrupted his father. "There's no need of adding
impudence to your other faults."

Teddy took his hand from the back of the chair and started for the hall,
after one despairing glance at the table.

"But, Father----" ventured Fred.

"Wouldn't it be enough to make him go without dessert?" interposed Mrs.
Rushton. "Can't you let him have at least a piece of bread and butter?
The child's health, you know----"

"Well," hesitated Mr. Rushton. But he caught sight of the sarcastic grin
on Aaron's face.

"No," he went on more firmly, "he can't have a thing. It won't hurt his
health to go without his supper for once. No, nothing at all!"

"Except what Agnes or Fred may slip to him later on," put in Aaron, with
a disagreeable smile.

"Mansfield's wish is law in this house, and Fred would not go against
his father's will," answered Mrs. Rushto