The Whiteoak Brothers. Mazo de la Roche

She was gone.”

      “Oh, hell.”

      His grandmother peered at him round the wing of her chair. “Hell?” she repeated, with relish as it were. “Hell. Is that what I heard you say?”

      Piers grunted assent.

      “Well, I won’t have it. I won’t have you bring your swearing and cursing into the house. Too much of it here. I heard someone else use bad language not five minutes ago. Who was it?”

      “Boney,” grinned Piers.

      “He swears in Hindustani. That’s different.”

      Renny bent and kissed her. “Have you had a good day?” he asked, playing with the ribbon rosette on her cap.

      “Yes. Very good, thank you. But I’m hungry. Why doesn’t Wragge sound the gong?”

      “Because it’s not quite time for it.”

      She stretched out a hand to Eden who brought the beaded ottoman and sat himself by her knee. She stroked his hair, exclaiming that it was moist.

      “I was out in the rain, Gran.”

      “What wouldn’t many a girl give for your hair that keeps its wave in the wet!”

      Renny asked — “Where is Wake?”

      Meg came quickly to his side. She took his sleeve in her fingers and said in a low ominous tone:

      “I must speak to you about him. I told him I should.”

      “The little rascal bit her,” the grandmother exclaimed, suddenly full of energy. “He must be flogged.”

      Ernest remarked that this sort of viciousness should be nipped in the bud, and Nicholas, either at the thought of the deed or the prospect of its punishment, gave a sardonic chuckle and put down the loud pedal.

      Meg led Renny into the hall, where the two spaniels and the sheepdog had come up from the basement to seek him and now crowded each other for his attention. Patting them, he demanded — “Why did he bite you? Where did he bite you?”

      She closed the door behind them and, with a nod toward the closed door of the library, said — “Speak low — he’s in there. He’s been terrible all day — just as naughty and disobedient as could be. I was trying to put him some place — I forget where — and he kept saying — ‘I won’t — I won’t — I won’t’ — and then he bit me.”

      “Why didn’t you punish him on the spot?”

      “It was too serious. I said I would tell you.” A frown of exasperation dented his brow.

      “Show me the place.”

      “Oh … I scarcely can.”

      He grinned. “Nonsense.”

      She drew up her skirt, her petticoat, her knickers, and scanned her plump white thigh.

      “It’s faded a good deal,” she said. “It looked terrible at first.”

      “Hmph.” He bent to look at the almost invisible marks. “Did he draw blood?”

      “Well — not exactly. But that is not the point. The point is that he bit me.” She let down her skirt.

      Renny opened the door of the library and looked in.

      It was dark in there except for the line of brightness which showed where were the folding doors that led into the dining room. But now the light from the hall discovered a small figure sitting on his hands in an armchair beside the clean, swept fireplace in which flourished a large fern which it was Meg’s habit to keep in there in the summer.

      “Wake,” ordered Renny sternly. “Come here.”

      Wakefield at once slid from the chair and came into the hall. His long-lashed brown eyes blinked in the light.

      “I hear that you’ve bitten your sister.”

      Wakefield hung his head. “Yes.”

      “Very well. Come with me.” He held out his hand and the small supple one was meekly put into it.

      The two mounted the stairs while Meg looked after them, already half-regretting what she had done.

      “This is a bad business,” observed Renny, when the two were inside his bedroom and the door shut against the dogs.

      “Yes.”

      How small and weak he looked!

      “You know what we think of a horse that bites?”

      “Yes.”

      “And a dog?”

      “Yes.”

      “You know what happens to a dog that bites?”

      “He’s allowed two bites before they kill him. I’ve only had one.”

      “But you know you must be punished?”

      “Yes.” His lower lip began to tremble and tears filled his eyes.

      Renny had unbuttoned his own jacket and was taking off his belt.

      “Ever hear of a whipping boy?” he asked cheerfully.

      “No.” Apprehension of this strange new procedure transfixed the culprit.

      Renny gave a flick of the leather belt toward the nearest bedpost. “Well, that’s one. That’s your whipping boy.”

      “No! Renny, please!”

      “Yes. It’s going to take your whipping for you. Like this.” He struck the bedpost a sharp blow. “It takes the licking for you and you do the yelling for it — see?” He grinned down at Wakefield. “You understand?”

      “You mean you hit the bedpost and I scream?”

      “Just that.”

      “Really loud?”

      “Certainly. So they’ll hear it downstairs.”

      “What fun! Wait till I get my breath.”

      “Six whacks. Six yells.”

      “Go!” Wake jumped up and down in his relief.

      Six times Renny struck the bedpost and six times Wakefield rent the air with a shrill scream. At the sixth they heard Meg thumping up the stairs. The dogs were barking loudly. Wakefield tottered towards his sister as she flung open the door. “Meggie!” he bleated.

      With a glance of terrible reproach at Renny she gathered her small brother into her arms, clasped him to her breast, and lugged him along the passage to her own room, followed by the dogs.

      Half an hour later she sought out Renny with a bewildered air.

      “After all that, he hadn’t one little mark on him.”

      “They’ve faded,” he said mildly. “Like the marks on your leg.”

V THE POWER OF ATTTTORNEY

      It seemed an unconscionable time to Eden before he was able to have his grandmother to himself long enough for the signing of the power of attorney. He kept it convenient in his pocket along with his fountain pen, but as certainly as they two were alone, some other member of the family would come into the room or knock on the door. Adeline herself appeared to have forgotten about the scheme and Eden had moments when he wondered if it were not better that he also should forget it. He fancied that Boney, the parrot, had a jeering regard for him. Hanging head downward from his perch he would stare at Eden as though from that angle he had a better view of his machinations.

      His perturbed thoughts kept him uneasy. A poem he had half-written lay unfinished in his desk. Instead of rejoicing in