"I don't care," he said, brokenly, in his sweet treble--"I don't care, you're the handsomest girl in the town, and the best and the smartest, and not one can sing like you, and I'll kill any man that treats you ill--I will, I will!" He was sobbing on his sister's shoulder; she stood still, looking over his dark head at the snow-hung window and the night outside.

Her lips and eyes were quite steady now; she had recovered self-control when her brother's failed him, as if by some curious mental seesaw.
"No man can treat me ill unless I take it ill," said she, "and that I'll do for no man.

There's no killing to be done, and if there were I'd do it myself and ask nobody.

Come, Richard, let me go; I'm going to bed." She gave the boy's head a firm pat.

"There's a turnover in the pantry, under a bowl on the lowermost shelf," said she; and she laughed in his passionate, flushed face when he raised it.
"I don't care, I will!" he cried.
"Go and get your turnover; I saved it for you," said she, with a push.
Neither of them dreamed that Lot Gordon had been watching them, standing in a snow-drift under the south window, his eyes peering over the sill, his forehead wet with a snow-wreath, stifling back his cough.