“Oh, father! If he needed the work——” “What do you know about that?” Mr. Hopkins said coldly. “Don’t believe everything you hear, Cherry.” “But Mr. Fairbanks says——” “Least of all what this young man says. And now, once for all, I tell you to drop this intimacy with Fairbanks,” he continued, starting with his daughter toward the gate to the grounds. “I don’t care to have you associate with him. Understand?” “Oh, father!” cried Cherry, almost in tears. “Ralph has been kind to me. I am sure he has done you no harm,” Ralph overheard her reply. “Neither of your statements enters into the consideration at all. I object to your associating with this fellow.” “Why, father!” “You have heard what I have said,” said Barton Hopkins bitterly. “Fairbanks would better keep away from here. As for you, Cherry, I can make you obey me. Let him alone. Don’t speak to him again.” The girl’s head went up and she stared at her father proudly. Ralph had previously decided that she did not take much after her mouse-like mother. In some ways she had all the assertiveness of the supervisor himself. “I will obey you in every way possible, father,” she said softly but firmly. “But I cannot pass Ralph on the street as though I did not know him. He is my friend. He has been kind to me. I could not treat him as you want me to.” “Then, young lady, I’ll send you away where you will not be likely to cross his path. You are getting too bold and stubborn, anyway. Go in and pack your trunk. I’ll see your mother. You shall start this very day for your aunt’s at Selby Junction. Go into the house!” He hustled her up the path toward the house as though she were a small child who had disobeyed him. Cherry was crying. As for Ralph, he had never before so wanted to hit a man and refrained from doing it! “Discipline,” he growled, as he moved away. “That is what he calls it. He runs his household and his family just as he tries to run the division. “Well, sir, unless I much miss my guess, he is going to fall down, and fall down badly, on both propositions. But poor Cherry! Wish I hadn’t walked this way. I got her in bad. And now he’ll send her away and I’ll probably never see her again,” he finished, with a sigh. CHAPTER XVIII FROM BAD TO WORSE Ralph refrained from telling his mother anything about this recent occurrence. He knew she would feel hurt because of what Barton Hopkins had said. She was much more likely to resent a slight put upon her son than Ralph was himself. And, in any event, there was so much else to tell the widow regarding the happenings of the last eighteen hours that he himself quite forgot the sting that he had first felt because of Mr. Hopkins’ unfair speech and ungentlemanly conduct.