back, breathing quickly and regarding him in a shamed defiance.
"I'll show you whether I'm alive!" she panted vindictively.

"It's alive, and it's a humming-bird. Angels don't pinch."
Grant laid a finger upon his arm and drawled his solution of a
trivial mystery. "It mistook me for a honeysuckle, and gave me a
peck to make sure." He smiled indulgently, and exhaled a long
wreath of smoke from his nostrils. "Dear little
humming-birds--so simple and so harmless!"

"And I've promised to be nice to--THAT!" cried Evadna, in
bitterness, and rushed past him to the porch.

Being a house built to shelter a family of boys, and steps being
a superfluity scorned by their agile legs, there was a sheer drop
of three feet to the ground upon that side. Evadna made it in a
jump, just as the boys did, and landed lightly upon her slippered
feet.

"I hate you--hate you--HATE YOU!" she cried, her eyes blazing up
at his amused face before she ran off among the trees.

"It sings a sweet little song," he taunted, and his laughter
followed her mockingly as she fled from him into the shadows.

"What's the joke, Good Injun? Tell us, so we can laugh too."
Wally and Jack hurried in from the kitchen and made for the
doorway where he stood.

From under his straight, black brows Grant sent a keen glance