in her voice as she faced him. She could not finish
the repetition of that cry, "Don't you touch Joe!"

But there was no break in the spirit, that passion
of protection which had dealt the blow. Both boys
looked at her, something aghast.

She stood before them, trembling with rage and
shivering with cold in the sudden wind which had
come up. Her hair had fallen and blew across
her streaming face in brown witch-wisps; one of
the ill-darned stockings had come down and hung
about her shoe in folds full of snow; the arm which
had lost its sleeve was bare and wet; thin as the
arm of a growing boy, it shook convulsively, and
was red from shoulder to clinched fist. She was
covered with snow. Mists of white drift blew
across her, mercifully half veiling her.

Eugene recovered himself. He swung round
upon his heel, restored his hat to his head with
precision, picked up his stick and touched his
banjo-case with it.

"Carry that into the house," he said, indifferently,
to his step-brother.

"Don't you do it!" said the girl, hotly, between
her chattering teeth.