"There is nothing quite so useful!" cried the boy superbly, and laughed again in his perverse glee. "It is more useful than anything you can invent to say that Hector is going to do. Hector! Hector will be a rabbit-raiser; he likes rabbits better than anything. But I will come with my violin and make the rabbits stand up on their hind-legs and stare; I will play softly, wheedlingly, going slowly backwards towards the woods, and they will all come after me, without stopping for a nibble. I will lead them away, away, all the flock of little, round-backed, skipping things--just as I made you get out of bed and come up here." "I came to tell you to stop, foolish boy. I didn't want you to wake the others. It was very inconsiderate in you--very inconsiderate. And I am not sure that I am pleased with you for taking a thing so valuable--it is worth a great deal of money--unknown to me, or for doing things in secret, or for having dealings with people I know nothing of--hostlers and inn-keepers' wives. You certainly play nicely--" "Ah, did you truly think I did, mother?" he asked, eagerly. "You ought to know; you used to hear himself. Now, tell me, dear--" "But I am not at all sure"--she interrupted him, lamely querulous--"that the violin--You have been so underhanded, and I see now how you waste your time--it explains your being so bad with your lessons. I am not at all sure that the violin ought not to be taken from you." "I shall not give it up!" Dorastus said instantly, and it might be perfectly understood that he would struggle with his last breath to keep it, doing as much damage as in him lay to his opposers. Emmie, quite pale, looked into his face, that had fully returned from its mood of happy pride, and he looked into hers, as they had looked already when he was but a baby. Then, seeing what she had always seen, she tossed up her hands with a little helpless, womanish motion, and complained: "Oh, I am so cold, and I feel so ill! It is like a horrid dream--and I am miserable." She rose and pulled her things about her to go, tears shining on her cheek. Dorastus, who had leaped up and laid his hand resolutely on his violin and bow, if they should be in any immediate danger, watched her with a strange face. His jaw was iron. When, as she reached the door, he unclinched his teeth to speak, his face worked in spite of him and tears gushed from his eyes. "You never understand anything!" he exploded, in a harsh, angry voice all his pride could not keep from breaking. Then, with the indignant scorn of a child for a grown-up person who seems to him out of all nature dull--"Go!" he said, beating his arms violently about, "Go! Go!"