Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/100

88 with her little black ponies. She carried under her arm the stoppered milk can, which she deposited inside the door.

"Where is the empty can?" she asked Brainerd, who stood glowering by a pillar of the veranda. "Oh, that's the way it is," she stated incisively, as she looked up to see his face. "I expected as much, and that is why I am here. Come inside, my friend, I want to talk to you."

Brainerd followed her silently into the living room. "Now, what is it?" she demanded. "Sit down, man, sit down, and don't look at me like a thunder cloud. I am not accustomed to it."

"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Peyton, I did not mean to appear discourteous. But I am seriously annoyed, and I suppose I show it."

"What are you annoyed at, pray?"

"This milk—I cannot permit" "You cannot permit me to do a simple neighbourly act without objecting," she interrupted him. "No, I am going to do the talking. We have sixty dairy cows. The milk is nothing; no more than if you offered me one of those daisies from your garden. Yes, I know what you're going to say. But let me say this: I am not bringing the milk on your account. I am bringing it for Daffy; and I shall continue to do so."

"My daughter is not a fit subject for charity," said Brainerd, stiffly. "I cannot agree that comparative strangers have any right to make her so."

"Your daughter will be a fit subject for a hospital if she does not get the food and care her age requires," stated Mrs. Peyton, bluntly, "and I cannot agree that you have any right to deprive her of them."

"Daphne is a perfectly healthy child," rejoined Brainerd, a shade of uncertainty creeping into his tone.

"Is she, indeed?" said Allie dryly. "How long do you think she will remain so on jackrabbits, pork and flapjacks? I do not want to seem unkind, Mr. Brainerd, nor to appear to pry into your affairs; but I do not intend that child to come to any harm through your foolishness. You can be just as fantastic and quixotic as you please in your own case; but when it is a question of Daphne, I expect and intend to use a little common sense."