One day, when Griff and Martyn were assisting at the turn out of an isolated barn at Hillside, where Frank Fordyce declared, all the burnt-out rats and mice had taken refuge, the young ladies went out to cater for house decorations for Christmas under Clarence’s escort. Nobody but the clerk ever thought of touching the church, where there were holes in all the pews to receive the holly boughs. The girls came back, telling in eager scared voices how, while gathering butcher’s broom in Farmer Hodges’ home copse, a savage dog had flown out at them, but had been kept at bay by Mr. Clarence Winslow with an umbrella, while they escaped over the stile. Clarence had not come into the drawing-room with them, and while my mother, who had a great objection to people standing about in out-door garments, sent them up to doff their bonnets and furs, I repaired to our room, and was horrified to find him on my bed, white and faint. ‘Bitten?’ I cried in dismay. ‘Yes; but not much. Only I’m such a fool. I turned off when I began taking off my boots. No, no—don’t! Don’t call any one. It is nothing!’ He was springing up to stop me, but was forced to drop back, and I made my way to the drawing-room, where my mother happened to be alone. She was much alarmed, but a glass of wine restored Clarence; and inspection showed that the thick trowser and winter stocking had so protected him that little blood had been drawn, and there was bruise rather than bite in the calf of the leg, where the brute had caught him as he was getting over the stile as the rear-guard. It was painful, though the faintness was chiefly from tension of nerve, for he had kept behind all the way home, and no one had guessed at the hurt. My mother doctored it tenderly, and he begged that nothing should be said about it; he wanted no fuss about such a trifle. My mother agreed, with the proud feeling of not enhancing the obligations of the Fordyce family; but she absolutely kissed Clarence’s forehead as she bade him lie quiet till dinner-time. We kept silence at table while the girls described the horrors of the monster. ‘A tawny creature, with a hideous black muzzle,’ said Emily. ‘Like a bad dream,’ said Miss Fordyce. The two fathers expressed their intention of remonstrating with the farmer, and Griff declared that it would be lucky if he did not shoot it. Miss Fordyce generously took its part, saying the poor dog was doing its duty, and Griff ejaculated, ‘If I had been there!’ ‘It would not have dared to show its teeth, eh?’ said my father, when there was a good deal of banter. My father, however, came at night with mamma to inspect the hurt and ask details, and he ended with, ‘Well done, Clarence, boy; I am gratified to see you are acquiring presence of mind, and can act like a man.’ Clarence smiled when they were gone, saying, ‘That would have been an insult to any one else.’