“I know that he hoped it was on its pegs,” said Chap.
“Hoped!” exclaimed Susan, derisively. “He may as well give up hoping, as far as that gun is concerned. He knows, and you know, too, that I’ve got it, and I intend to keep it.”
“Susan,” said Chap, a gentle smile spreading over his face like honey over a buckwheat cake, “don’t you think you have kept up this little joke about long enough?”
“Little joke!” repeated Susan, her eyes flashing as she spoke. “That boy will find out before I am done that there is no joke about it; and I’ll have his elders know, too, that I haven’t been in this family for fourteen years to be ruled over now by a boy.”
“Phil has been in the family longer than that,” said Chap; “he is fifteen.”
“Stuff!” said Susan, not seeing any point in this remark. “If Mr. Berkeley had had time to think about things before he went away, he’d ’a’ left me in charge of the house. I know he intended me to have charge of it, and he ought to have said so.”
“But, Susan,” said Chap, “all that hasn’t anything to do with the gun. You surely haven’t any use for that.”
“I’ve a particular use for it,” said Susan.
And off she walked, as she was in the habit of doing when she had said what she had to say, no matter whether the person she was talking to had finished or not.
“I must pull off the woollen sock,” said Chap to himself. “Soft stepping won’t do with her.”