Mitchell, all the same."
The boy stared at her reproachfully.
"But I thought you would understand, Ted."
"I do, dear. If I didn't understand quite so well, I shouldn't be so
sure what you ought to do. When I was your age, I was always getting into
just such scrapes as this, simply because I used to burn up all my powder
without taking aim. All the good it did, was to show up the weak spots of
my position. Go slow, Allyn, and don't be so ready to fight. It never
does any good."
"But I wasn't going to sit still and let him bully that little baby,"
Allyn argued.
"No; but you needn't have tried to bully him in your turn," his sister
answered promptly, though in her heart of hearts she was in perfect
sympathy with her young brother. She gloried in his fearlessness, even
while she told herself that he must submit to discipline. "It wasn't your
place to tell Mr. Mitchell what he ought to do. He is an older man, and
he may have reasons that you don't know. He is not accountable to you,
Allyn, and his judgment may be better than yours. Moreover, you owe him
obedience, and the McAlisters always pay their debts."
"Have I got to eat humble pie and go back, Teddy?"
"You've got to eat humble pie," she said, as a laughing note crept into
her voice when she thought of Jamie Lyman, insignificant and warty cause
of such a storm.
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