Part 15 (2/2)

”Look at him, madam. That is the handiwork of your daughter. The poor boy was quietly digging in the garden, cultivating a few unpretending flowers, when your daughter, madam, suddenly flew at him over the railings and struck him on the face so furiously that, if I had not come to the rescue, the dear boy might have lost the use of both his eyes. But most happily I heard the disturbance and went out and stopped her.”

”Dear me, this is _very_ sad,” faltered little Mrs. Carter; ”I'm sure I don't know what can have come over Cissy. Are you sure there is no mistake?”

”Mistake! No, indeed, madam, there is no mistake, I saw her with my own eyes--a great girl twice Wedgwood's size.”

At this point Mr. Davenant Carter came to the door with his table-napkin in his hand.

”What's this--what's this?” he demanded in his quick way--”Cissy and your son been fighting?”

”No indeed, sir,” said the complainant indignantly; ”this dear boy never so much as lifted a hand to her. Ah, here she comes--the very--ahem, young lady herself.”

All ignorant of the trouble in store for her, Cissy came whistling through the laurels with half-a-dozen dogs at her heels. At sight of her Mrs. Baker bridled and perked her chin with indignation till all her black bugles clashed and twinkled.

”Come here, Cissy,” said her father sternly. ”Did you strike this boy to-day in front of his mother's gate?”

”Yes, I did,” quoth the undaunted Cissy, ”and what's more, I'll do it again, and give him twice as much, if he ever dares to call _my_ grandmother 'Old Blind Patch' again--I don't care if he is two years and three months older than me!”

”Did you call names at my mother?” demanded Cissy's father, towering up very big, and looking remarkably stern.

Master Wedgwood had no denial ready; but he had his best boots on and he looked very hard at them.

”Come, Wedgwood dear, tell them that you did not call names. You know you could not!”

”I never called n.o.body names. It was her that hit me!” snivelled Wedgwood.

”Now, you hear,” said his mother, as if that settled the question.

”Oh, you little liar! Wait till I catch you out!” said Cissy, going a step nearer as if she would like to begin again. ”I'll teach you to tell lies on me.”

Mrs. Baker of Laurel Villa held up her hands so that the lace mitts came together like the fingers of a figure of grief upon a tomb. ”What a dreadful girl!” she said, looking up as if to ask Heaven to support her.

Mr. Davenant Carter remembered his position as a county magistrate.

Also he desired to stand well with all his neighbours.

”Madam,” he said to Mrs. Baker, in the impressive tone in which he addressed public meetings, ”I regret exceedingly that you should have been put to this trouble. I think that for the future you will have no reason to complain of my daughter. Will you allow me to conduct you across the policies by the shorter way? Cissy, go to bed _at once_, and stop there till I bid you get up! That will teach you to take the law into you own hands when your father is a Justice of the Peace!”

This he said in such a stern voice that Mrs. Baker was much flattered and quite appeased. He walked with the lady to the small gate in the boundary wall, opened it with his private key, and last of all shook hands with his visitor with the most distinguished courtesy. Some day he meant to stand for the burgh and her brothers were well-to-do grocers in the town.

”Sir,” she said in parting, ”I hope you will not be too severe with the young lady. Perhaps after all she was only a trifle impulsive!”

”Discipline must be maintained,” said Mr. Davenant Carter sternly, closing, however, at the same time the eyelid most remote from Mrs.

Baker of Laurel Villa.

”It shows what a humbug pa is,” muttered Cissy, as she went upstairs; ”he knows very well it is bed-time anyway. I don't believe he is angry one bit!”

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