He had entered, put Dorothy and Celia gently to one side, and stood before the ogress. “Show me, missus,” he said again. “I’m more like your size.”
“Who are you?” demanded the farm woman, taken aback.
But Celia’s voice was again heard—and this time it was no whimper. She suddenly bounded upon Tom and clasped both her tiny arms about one of his sturdy legs.
“I know him! I know him!” she shrieked. “My Miss Dorothy Dale has kep’ her promise. It’s Tom Moran. I knowed I’d know him. Don’t you see his red hair?”
“And he kin take his red hair out o’ here,” declared Mrs. Hogan, standing with arms akimbo and a very red face.
“It’s quick enough I shall be doin’ so,” said Tom Moran, sternly. “And Cely shall come with me.”
“Not much!” ejaculated the woman. “I got her, bound hard and fast be the orphan asylum folks——”
Tom seemed to swell until he was twice his usual size. His steely eyes flashed as Dorothy’s had flashed.
“Let me tell ye something, me lady,” he almost croaked, and shaking a finger in Mrs. Hogan’s face. “If ye had a stack av papers from the foundling asylum, as high as yon tree, ye’d not kape me from takin’ away me own sister—mind that now! And you call yourself an Irishwoman? Where’s yer hear-r-rt? Where’s yer pity for the little wan of yer own race, left to the tinder care of strangers? Ah-h!”
Like Ned White, when he had tackled the Daggett woman and her crony, Tom Moran heartily wished at that moment that Mrs. Ann Hogan were a man!