"Well, ma said she bet it was all a bluff to keep us from coming out here," Billiard explained, looking genuinely surprised at Irene's words.
"And anyway," supplemented Toady, "she said if it was true about your father and mother being away to Los Angeles, there'd have to be someone here to look after you kids, and two more wouldn't make much difference."
"Specially when she's paying for our board!"
Tabitha, a silent spectator in the doorway, ground her teeth in helpless rage, while Gloriana gasped audibly at the impudence of mother and sons.
"It's no more'n right that you should pay board," Susie declared in heat. "You make so much trouble wherever you go."
"Do, huh?" Billiard, frowning darkly, advanced threateningly toward his outspoken cousin, with fists doubled up and an ugly sneer on his face. But Susie was no coward, and when he shook his knuckles close to her little pug nose to emphasize his words, the girl's arm shot out unexpectedly and landed a blow fair and square on one eye.
With a yell of rage and pain, the surprised boy lunged forward, but instead of confronting Susie, he found himself in the grasp of a tall, irate young lady, who wore her shining black hair pinned up on top of her head, although her skirts were still short enough to show a pair of trim ankles. "Now stop right here!"
She spoke quietly, almost too quietly; but one look into the smouldering depths of those big, black eyes was enough to cow the bully, and he jerked himself free, muttering sulkily, "She hit me first!"
"She had to, or get hit herself," bawled Inez, jigging excitedly from one foot to the other in her exultation over her cousin's defeat.
"Inez!"