"Aunt Hetty," he demanded, "did you say that thing that you called a mortgage belonged to Pearl and me?"
"Yes," replied his aunt shortly, "and I as your legal guardian, may do with it as I see fit."
"That is a strange law," replied her questioner. "But I tell you, Aunt Hetty, I won't have any of the money you take from those poor people, nor will Pearl. I'd rather be a beggar. And I know I'd feel worse than a beggar, if we took her place from her. Oh, how can you, how dare you work against Mr. Grey when he is so good? Hasn't Joe Smith's father ever told you to love your enemies?"
"Periwinkle," protested his aunt weakly. For the first time in her life she felt utterly helpless and incapable of reply.
"Periwinkle Toddles!" she repeated, but she could not meet the look in his reproachful grey eyes. His great-uncle Jeoffrey recovering first from the shock finally came to her aid.
"Boy," he thundered. "What do you know of this? In my day children didn't speak until they were told to do so. The young rascal needs a sound thrashing, Hetty."
But Miss Hetty had been so affected by the childish rebuke that she could not find it in her heart to be angry with her nephew.
"Think how the child was raised, Uncle," she pleaded.
"Peri, didn't the—the Fat Woman ever tell you to respect your elders?"
"Yes, Aunt Hetty, I think so," the boy replied, surprised at unexpected softness of her tone. "Least ways she told us to respect everybody that was worthy of it. She was a very brilliant woman," he added, turning to his Uncle Eldon with a rare smile. And then for a moment the mask that hid the soul of that man was lifted, for he replied with a sudden and unusual warmth: "At any rate she deserves credit for training a boy, whom I would be glad to call my son."