"It is too bad that you should have to submit to any one's whims and tempers," the young man said, switching his stick angrily backwards and forwards. "Why not?" she asked, laughing. "Everybody has some one over them. If you hadn't, you would never know right from wrong." "But he is unkind to you." "No, indeed," said Kate, with decision. "He is really very kind to me. He may appear a little stern at times, but I know that he means it for my own good, and I should be a very foolish girl if I resented it. Besides, he is so pious and good that what may seem a little fault to us would appear a great thing in his eyes." "Oh, he is very pious and good, then," Tom remarked, in a doubtful voice. His shrewd old father had formed his own views as to John Girdlestone's character, and his son had in due course imbibed them from him. "Yes, of course he is," answered Kate, looking up with great wondering eyes. "Don't you know that he is the chief supporter of the Purbrook Street Branch of the Primitive Trinitarians, and sits in the front pew three times every Sunday?" "Ah!" said Tom. "Yes, and subscribes to all the charitable funds, and is a friend of Mr. Jefferson Edwards, the great philanthropist. Besides, look how good he has been to me. He has taken the place of my father." "Hum!" Tom said dubiously; and then, with a little pang at his heart, "Do you like Ezra Girdlestone too?" "No, indeed," cried his companion with energy. "I don't like him in the least. He is a cruel, bad-hearted man." "Cruel! You don't mean cruel to you, of course." "No, not to me. I avoid him as much as I can, and sometimes for weeks we hardly exchange a word. Do you know what he did the other day? It makes me shudder even to think of it. I heard a cat crying pitifully in the garden, so I went out to see what was the matter. When I got outside I saw Ezra Girdlestone leaning out of a window with a gun in his hands--one of those air-guns which don't make any noise when they go off. And there, in the middle of the garden, was a poor cat that he had tied to a bush, and he had been practising at it for ever so long. The poor creature was still alive, but oh! so dreadfully injured." "The brute! What did you do?" "I untied it and brought it inside, but it died during the night." "And what did he say?" "He put up his gun while I was untying it, as if he had half a mind to take a shot at me. When I met him afterwards he said that he would teach me to mind my own business. I didn't mind what he said though, as long as I had the cat." "Spoke like that, did he?" said Tom savagely, flushing up to his eyes. "I wish I saw him now. I'd teach him manners, or--" "You'll certainly get run over if you go on like that," interrupted Kate. Indeed, the young man in his indignation was striding over a crossing without the slightest heed of the imminent danger which he ran from the stream of traffic.