Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/41

 cap, and began to repeat his usual prayers in peace. And then, to make his devotions more real, he gathered some broken branches and small twigs, drove the straighter ones into the soft earth and put the others across them in a crude representation of an altar.

The story of that make-believe cannot be followed farther without an appearance of sacrilege; but Don's memory was full of Old Testament stories of Jehovah's interference in aid of his prophets; he had not yet learned that the age of miracles had ceased; and when he came out of the bushes again, he walked like a young David to battle, his eyes big with a religious exaltation.

Conroy had been seeking him up and down the Park, hiding and watching, without ever suspecting that his timid cousin had dared to enter one of the forbidden clumps of bushes; and as soon as he saw Don in the open, he raised a view-halloo and bore down on him. Don doubled up his fists and waited. Conroy came shouting gleefully. He did not intend to tease again; he had seen Don going off alone into the Park, and he had been taken with remorse for his persecution. In the bottom of his boy's heart, he admired his quiet relative, though by a common boyish perversion of affection he could never keep his rough hands off Don, trying to plague him out of a superior indifference that was the more irritating because it was so unconscious.

As he came nearer, he saw Don's attitude and stopped. "What's the matter?"

"Keep away from me."