“No, ma’am. It isn’t that,” declared the child, grown desperate at last, perhaps. “But you don’t love me. You don’t love any little girls. And I’d go without a sup to eat, or a roof like you give me, or—or a bed, jes’ to be loved a little.”
“Plague o’ me life!” ejaculated the woman.
They heard her swift and heavy foot across the floor. The child cried out before she was struck. Tom had helped Dorothy out of the carriage and was tying the horse. Swift of foot, the girl from Glenwood was before him at the door.
“Celia!” she cried, before the echo of the slap crossed the kitchen.
Celia’s whimper was changed to a scream of delight. She rushed across the room into Dorothy’s arms.
“How dare you, Mrs. Hogan?” exclaimed Dorothy, her beautiful eyes fairly flashing with anger. “How dare you?”
“Who are ye, now? What! come to make more trouble, heh?” exclaimed the woman, advancing in her rage in a very threatening way toward Dorothy.
But Dorothy stood her ground, while the child cowered behind her. “You cannot scare me, Mrs. Hogan,” declared Dorothy. “You dare not strike me. Nor shall you ever touch this little one again.”
“Impidence!” gasped the woman. “I’ll show ye——”
“Show me, missus,” growled Tom Moran, his face very much flushed and his red hair seeming to stand fairly on end.