“Hugh does not hate any one,” said Mrs. Worthington, “much less his sister, though you must admit that you try him terribly.”
“How, I’d like to know?” ’Lina asked, and her mother replied,
“He thinks you proud, and vain, and artificial, and you know he abhors deceit above all else. Why he’d cut off his right hand sooner than tell a lie.”
“Pshaw!” was ’Lina’s contemptuous response, then after a moment, she continued, “I wonder how we came to be so different. He must be like his father, and I like mine, that is, supposing I know who he is. Wouldn’t it be funny if, just to be hateful, he had sent you back the wrong child!”
“What made you think of that?” Mrs. Worthington asked, quickly, and ’Lina replied,
“Oh, nothing, only the last time Hugh had one of his tantrums, and got so outrageously angry at me, he said he’d give all he owned if it were so, but I reckon he’ll never have his wish. There’s too much of old Sam about me to admit of a doubt,” and, laughing spitefully, ’Lina returned to her book, just as Hugh re-entered the room.
“Have you heard that sound again?” he asked. “It wasn’t Tommie, for I found him asleep, and I’ve been all round the house, but could discover nothing. The storm is beginning to abate, I think, and the moon is trying to break through the clouds,” and going again to the window, Hugh looked out into the yard, where the shrubbery and trees were just discernible in the greyish light of the December moon. “That’s a big drift by the lower gate,” he continued “and queer shaped, too. Come see, mother. Isn’t that a shawl, or an apron, or something blowing in the wind?”
Mrs. Worthington arose, and joining her son, looked in the direction indicated, where a garment of some kind was certainly fluttering in the gale.
“It’s something from the wash, I guess,” she said. “I thought all the time Hannah had better not hang out the clothes, as some of them were sure to be lost.”
This explanation was quite satisfactory to Mrs. Worthington, but that strange drift by the gate troubled Hugh, and the signal above it seemed to him like a signal of distress. Why should the snow drift there more than elsewhere? He never knew it do so before. He had half a mind to turn out the dogs, and see what that would do.