"You may abuse me as much as you like, Jim Maverick," she was saying, "I've had nothing but abuse from you for the past twenty years, and I don't never expect nothing else, but if you ever lay a hand on that girl, or speak to her like that again, you'll be sorry for it. I can make you smart for it, and you know it, and I'll do it too." The boys, Joe and Jim, aged respectively twenty and eighteen, stared at their mother in astonishment, but their father, several shades paler, ordered them from the house; then advancing toward his wife, shaking his fist and cursing her, he exclaimed: "You damned old fool! do you think you can try to scare me? you'll find 'tain't very healthy business for you." "Kill me, if you want to," she replied doggedly, "but you'll find it won't make you any better off; I've fixed you for that." "What do you mean?" he asked, now thoroughly frightened. "Mean!" said his wife, as she saw that she at last had the brute in her power, "it means that you've got to let that girl alone, and behave yourself to me, or you'll wish you had, that's all." Just then, Minty entered on the scene, her round eyes wide open with astonishment, and Lyle entering an instant later from the breakfast room, Maverick slunk away to his work. Meanwhile, the other boarders were gathering in the breakfast room, Miss Gladden and Rutherford being the last to enter. "Whew!" exclaimed the latter, rubbing his hands, "this seems a little wintry, doesn't it? Looks like a storm, too!" "Yes," said Morgan, glancing up, "we'll probably have a snow-storm before noon." "How do you pleasure seekers intend to spend the day?" inquired Houston, addressing Miss Gladden and Rutherford. "I think I shall spend it beside the fire," replied Miss Gladden, shivering slightly, and sitting down for a moment beside the little box stove, where a wood fire was crackling and spluttering; "I haven't quite decided what to do, because I didn't come out here prepared for snow-storms." "I believe," said Rutherford, "I'll take a day off and develop some of the pictures I've taken lately, and sort over my collection of views." "That will be delightful," exclaimed Miss Gladden, smiling brightly at Lyle who had entered the room in time to hear Rutherford's remark, "We will make Mr. Rutherford entertain us with his collection, won't we Lyle?" Lyle smiled in assent, but Miss Gladden very quickly detected traces of trouble in her face, and determined, if possible, to gain her confidence, and find the cause. Rutherford also noticed the change in her appearance, and remarked, after she had again left the room: "Miss Maverick doesn't look like herself this morning, I wonder what is the matter." "I think there has been a storm of some kind in the kitchen," Houston replied, "I heard pretty loud talk when I first came in."