Free Daphne Deane by Grace Livingston Hill

at her child.
    He was covered with mud and blood from his heels to his head, his nose was swelled to twice its normal size, and one eye was closed and quite black. There was something resembling tears running down his face and mingling with the blood, but he did not seem to be aware of it. His one good eye was flashing fire of what he plainly felt to be righteous wrath.
    "I been having an awful fight, that's what!" panted the boy.
    "A fight? But Ransom, you promised me--!"
    "Yes, I know, Mother. I promised you I wouldn't fight, not unless it was strictly necessary! But this was! Wait till I tell ya. That new kid, that Ted Gowney, that's just come ta our school, said his father had bought the Morrell place and was gonta make a race course out of it, an' a gambling joint of the house, an' sell liquor, and have a roadhouse, an' a lotta things worse, an' I tole him he was a liar! I tole him that we knew the man that owned it an' he wouldn't ever sell his place for a thing like that! And so he laughed at me an' said his dad had already bought it, or as good as bought it, an' there wasn't any man too good ta sell his place for any thing if he got enough money out of it. And then I--I--I just licked the tar out of him!"
    Keith Morrell was on his feet, his eyes shining, his hand reached out to grasp the grubby fist that had been so valiant.
    "Good work, young feller! I'm proud of you! I'm glad I have such a brave defender. I'm the owner of that place, and you can just tell that young boaster that money wouldn't buy that place of mine now, not even if the buyer had perfectly good moral purposes in view. Because, you see, I'm not selling that place to anybody, at present anyway. I'm keeping it for myself! And after you've mopped up a bit and had your lunch, we'll go out and hunt up that scum of the earth and make it very plain to him."
    Then the boy's one good eye shone joyously in the midst of his ruined young face, and he shouted: "Oh, boy ! I knew you were the stuff! I knew I could bank on you! I knew you'd never sell that grand place to anybody! Not to a fella like that mutt's dad, anyhow!"
    And then Beverly joined in with her scornful young voice: "Of course not! He wouldn't do a thing like that! I wouldn't a bothered to tell the poor fish. I'd just a laughed at him and let him wait ta find out how wrong he was!"
    But Keith Morrell was watching Daphne's face. She was preparing a sumptuous plate for her young hero brother, but her eyes were shining like two stars, and Keith suddenly knew that Daphne really cared a lot whether he sold that house or not.
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Chapter 6
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    Anne Casper lit a cigarette and dropped down on the chaise lounge in her own room.
    She was attired in white satin pajamas embroidered with peacocks. She always wore some shade of peacock when she was angry, preferably peacocks with their tails spread. The vain birds seemed to have something in common with her.
    For the past twenty-four hours she had been very angry, and so she wore peacocks.
    The room was a very lovely one, cool and delightful, as all of Anne's surroundings were likely to be. Two windows looked out to sea, and a sea breeze was blowing the filmy curtains now, billowing them in lovely dreamy folds.
    The curtains were pearl color, almost ethereal in their texture. The walls were white with a tinting of rose in the ceiling that well set off the furniture upholstered in imported white linen tapestry, with great sprays of pink roses flung here and there like painted things. There were white rugs and other white appointments. It made a lovely background for Anne Casper's dark beauty, and she knew it.
    But she was not thinking about her appearance just now. She sat staring at a large photograph of Keith Morrell framed in silver that stood on a little white table formed of a slab of white onyx curiously supported upon the backs of two modernistic animals, dogs perhaps, or something wilder. Beside the picture stood a small