CHAPTER XV. SISTER v. SWEETHEART
There had not been, so far as I could recollect, anything that could be called even a tiff—if such a wretched syllable can find its way into the heaven seventy-seventh—between the lovely Dariel and myself; but on the other hand I had left her rather more abruptly than courtesy would warrant, because of the grievous tranquillity she displayed in speaking of a fellow (a Prince Hafer, as she called him), who possessed almost every hateful merit, and was eager to bring it in, to cut out mine, by some underhand and undermining fraud. What had I done to be treated like this? Was there no claim established on my part? Was it nothing to have come down the hill that evening, at the risk of my neck and Old Joe's as well, and then to put up with a strained conscien
