Page:Further Chronicles of Avonlea (1920).djvu/262

230 “If you ever strike my brother again,” she said, slowly and vindictively, “I will slap your face every time you do. You have no right to touch him.”

“My patience, what a fury!” said Electa. “Naomi Holland’ll never be dead as long as you're alive!”

She told Charles of the affair and Eunice was severely punished. But Electa never interfered with Christopher again.

All the discordant elements in the Holland household could not prevent the children from growing up. It was a consummation which the harassed Caroline devoutly wished. When Christopher Holland was seventeen he was a man grown — a big, strapping fellow. His childish beauty had coarsened, but he was thought handsome by many.

He took charge of his mother’s farm then, and the brother and sister began their new life together in the long-unoccupied house. There were few regrets on either side when they left Charles Holland’s roof. In her secret heart Eunice felt an unspeakable relief.

Christopher had been “hard to manage,” as his uncle said, in the last year. He was getting into the habit of keeping late hours and doubtful company. This always provoked an explosion of wrath from