Jonas shrieked and struggled, but in vain.  Phil gave his face an effectual scrubbing, and did not desist until he thought he had avenged the bad treatment he had suffered.

“There, get up!” said he at length.

Jonas scrambled to his feet, his mean features working convulsively with anger.

“You’ll suffer for this!” he shouted.

“You won’t make me!” said Phil contemptuously.

“You’re the meanest boy in the village.”

“I am willing to leave that to the opinion of all who know me.”

“I’ll tell my mother!”

“Go home and tell her!”

Jonas started for home, and Phil did not attempt to stop him.

As he saw Jonas reach the street and plod angrily homeward, he said to himself: 

“I suppose I shall be in hot water for this; but I can’t help it.  Mrs. Brent always stands up for her precious son, who is as like her as can be.  Well, it won’t make matters much worse than they have been.”

Phil concluded not to go home at once, but to allow a little time for the storm to spend its force after Jonas had told his story.  So he delayed half an hour and then walked slowly up to the side door.  He opened the door, brushed off the snow from his boots with the broom that stood behind the door, and opening the inner door, stepped into the kitchen.

No one was there, as Phil’s first glance satisfied him, and he was disposed to hope that Mrs. Brent—­he never called her mother—­was out, but a thin, acid, measured voice from the sitting-room adjoining soon satisfied him that there was to be no reprieve.

“Philip Brent, come here!”

Phil entered the sitting-room.

In a rocking-chair by the fire sat a thin woman, with a sharp visage, cold eyes and firmly compressed lips, to whom no child would voluntarily draw near.

On a sofa lay outstretched the hulking form of Jonas, with whom he had had his little difficulty.

“I am here, Mrs. Brent,” said Philip manfully.

“Philip Brent,” said Mrs. Brent acidly, “are you not ashamed to look me in the face?”

“I don’t know why I should be,” said Philip, bracing himself up for the attack.

“You see on the sofa the victim of your brutality,” continued Mrs. Brent, pointing to the recumbent figure of her son Jonas.

Jonas, as if to emphasize these words, uttered a half groan.

Philip could not help smiling, for to him it seemed ridiculous.

“You laugh,” said his step-mother sharply.  “I am not surprised at it.  You delight in your brutality.”

“I suppose you mean that I have treated Jonas brutally.”

“I see you confess it.”

“No, Mrs. Brent, I do not confess it.  The brutality you speak of was all on the side of Jonas.”

“No doubt,” retorted Mrs. Brent, with sarcasm.

“It’s the case of the wolf and the lamb over again.”