It will not do for
you girls to be running about alone, and I fear the time will hang heavy on
your hands."
"We shall get along all right. You need not worry about us," said Amy with
more cheerfulness than was really necessary.
The new arrangement had not been in force long till reports came, in one
way and another, to Austin's ears. There were fragments of conversations
that floated into his bedchamber as he was trying to coax sleep to his
weary eyes when the children were all home, bits of information that made
him fearful that Amy was taking advantage of his absence at night to follow
out her own plans.
"Amy, where were you last night?" he asked one day after he was certain he
had some facts.
"Minding my own affairs," was the lofty reply.
"Were you out with Herb Wilson?" he asked again.
"I was out a while in the evening, if you must know, and Herb was in the
crowd," she answered insolently.
"Do you not know that he and his crowd are not the kind of people you
should be with?" he asked severely.
"Are you their judge that you can so sneeringly speak of them?" she asked
as the angry blood rushed to her face.
"I am not sneering at them, but I do wish to protect the good name of my
sister, and I will have to forbid your going out with them again," he said
decidedly.
"There you go, ordering me around like a little child. You expect me to
obey you like Lila does. I will not, and I shall go out with whom and when
I please," was her defiant reply.
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