“Peter! Who would?”
“Those Hastings school-boys.”
“Would they? Why?”
“Because they are hateful,” said Peter, rising and walking about with his hands in his pockets. “The class I am in is nothing but a set of ruffians. I’d like to fight ’em, every one of ’em, and I will some day. They call me the ‘Glen Arden dude’ now. You see I’m the only boy there who has been to a private school. I wish father had never sent me to that school in Boston. I wish—”
“Never mind!” said Victoria, quickly. “Father always did what was quite right. What else do they say?”
“They say I’m tied to my sisters’ apron strings, just because they saw me with Honor and Katherine yesterday when I was carrying the bundles. I’ll never go to Fordham with any of you girls again, and I’m not going to carry your bundles if I do go.”
Quickly a look of scorn gathered in Victoria’s expressive face. Her brown eyes fairly gleamed with it as they regarded her brother.
“What a poor-spirited boy you must be, Peter!” said she.
“Poor-spirited!” exclaimed Peter. “Why, I’m willing to fight any boy or any two boys in that school, and I will yet. I’d like to know what you mean by that, Vic!”
“Oh, I don’t mean that you are not brave enough if there is any fighting to be done,” said she. “I’d trust you quickly enough for that, but I think you are very poor-spirited to be afraid to carry our bundles or be seen with any of us, just because those common boys that go to the Hastings School in Fordham chose to laugh at you for doing it. If you go on in this way, you won’t be the kind of man father was, or that Mr. Abbott is. Mr. Abbott is only too glad to do things for women, and father was just like him in that. And if you are not willing to do these little things for us now, I don’t believe you will take care of us when you grow up, so we may as well get accustomed to taking care of ourselves.”