He is a tall young man, not strictly handsome, but decidedly good to look at, with honest hazel eyes, and a shapely head, and altogether very well set up. As a rule he is one of the most cheerful people alive, and a tremendous favorite in his regiment, the ---- Hussars, though just now it might suggest itself to the intelligent observer that he considers he has been hardly used. A very little more haste, and that precipitation _must_ have taken place. He had made an instinctive movement towards her with protective arms outstretched; but though a little cry had escaped her, she had maintained her balance, and now stands looking at him with laughing eyes, and panting breath, and two pretty hands pressed against her bosom. Mr. Dysart lets his disappointed arms fall to his sides, and assumes the aggrieved air of one who has been done out of a good thing. "You!" says she, when at last she can speak. "I suppose so," returns he discontentedly. He might just as well have been anyone else, or anywhere else--such a chance--and _gone_! "Never were you so welcome!" cries she, dodging behind him as Tommy, fully armed, and all alive, comes tearing round the corner. "Ah, ha, Tommy, _sold_! I've got a champion now. I'm no longer shivering in my shoes. Mr. Dysart will protect me--_won't_ you, Mr. Dysart?" to the young man, who says "yes" without stirring a muscle. The heaviest bribe would not have induced him to move, because, standing behind him, she has laid her dainty fingers on his shoulders, from which safe position she mocks at Tommy with security. Were the owners of the shoulders to stir, the owners of the fingers might remove the delightful members. Need it be said that, with this awful possibility before him, Mr. Dysart is prepared to die at his post rather than budge an inch. And, indeed, death seems imminent. Tommy charging round the rhododendron, finding himself robbed of his expected scalp, grows frantic, and makes desperate passes at Mr. Dysart's legs, which that hero, being determined, as I have said, not to stir under any provocation, circumvents with a considerable display of policy, such as: "I say, Tommy, old boy, is that you? How d'ye do? Glad to see me, aren't you?" This last very artfully with a view to softening the attacks. "You don't know what I've brought you!" This is more artful still, and distinctly a swindle, as he has brought him nothing, but on the spot he determines to redeem himself with the help of the small toy-shops and sweety shops down in the village. "Put down that fork like a good boy, and let me tell you how----" "Oh, _bother_ you!" says Tommy, indignantly. "I'd have had her only for you! What brought you here now? Couldn't you have waited a bit?" "Yes! what brought you?" says Miss Kavanagh, most disgracefully going over to the other side, now that danger is at an end, and Tommy has planted his impromptu tomahawk in a bed close by. "Do you want to know?" says he quickly.