"How dare you!" Betty's voice was shaking, but she stood up in the wagon and looked down at Mr. Peabody bravely. "How dare you taunt a boy with what he isn't responsible for? It isn't his fault that he was born in the poorhouse, nor his fault that we're late. I made him stop and help put a buggy wheel on. Oh, how can you be so mean, and close and hateful?"
Betty's eyes overflowed as she gathered up her bundles and jumped to the ground. Mrs. Peabody, standing in the doorway, was a silent witness to her outburst, and the two hired men, who had come up to the house for dinner, were watching curiously. Bob had disappeared with the bucket of whitewash. No one would say anything, thought Betty despairingly, if a murder were committed in this awful place.
"Been spending your money?" sneered Mr. Peabody, eyeing the bundles with disfavor. "Never earned a cent in your life, I'll be bound, yet you'll fling what isn't yours right and left. Let me give you a word of advice, young lady; as long as you're in my house you hold your tongue if you don't want to find yourself in your room on a diet of bread and water. Understand?"
Betty Gordon fled upstairs, her one thought to reach the haven of her bed. Anger and humiliation and a sense of having lowered herself to the Peabody level by quarreling when in a bad temper swept over her in a wave. She buried her head in the hard little pillow.
CHAPTER XI
A KEEN DISAPPOINTMENT
"I'm just as bad as he is, every bit," sobbed poor little Betty. "Uncle Dick would say so. I'm in his house, much as I hate it, and I hadn't any right to call him names—only he is so hateful! Oh, dear, I wonder if I shall ever get away from here!"
She cried herself into a headache, and had no heart to open the parcel of groceries or to go down to ask Mrs. Peabody for something to eat, though indeed the girl knew she stood small chance of securing as much as a cracker after the dinner hour.
Suddenly some one put a soothing hand on her hot forehead, and, opening her swollen eyes, Betty saw Mrs. Peabody standing beside the bed.