Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/58

54 hair, but you stop right there. Red Wood! Red blood! You haven't an ounce of it."

Since the Misses Taylor both prided themselves on the very thing with which their father was twitting them, his statement did something towards restoring their good humor. A silent truce was declared by a mere lifting of aristocratic eyebrows. Their disagreement had been over a trivial cause; indeed, it was difficult to remember what it had been.

"The postman at last!" exclaimed their father. "Here! You imp of Satan!" he called to the crown of a hat and end of a hoe he descried at the top of the high, clipped garden hedge. "Come here!"

The hat promptly disappeared, but the end of the hoe handle still protruded above the garden hedge. "Don't hide from me! Come here, I say, you imp of Satan! What's that little devil's name? So many darkeys on this place I can't remember their names."

"That's Willie Bell, I think," said Evelyn.

Willie Bell, being discovered, came forward from behind the hedge to report to the master of whom he was in awe.

"Go get the mail from that fool postman. Here, take these letters to him and bring back