Bram got back into the farmyard, and waited for the appearance at the broken door of some occupant of the house to whom he could make his excuses for the damage he had done. He had a shrewd suspicion who that occupant would be. Since all the noise and commotion he and Theodore Biron had made had not brought a single servant upon the scene, it was natural to infer that Mr. Biron and his daughter had the house to themselves. And this idea filled Bram with wonder and compassion. What a life for a young girl, who had seemed to rough Bram the epitome of all womanly beauty and grace and charm, was this which accident had revealed to him. A life full of humiliations, of terrors, of anxieties which would have broken the heart and the spirit of many an older woman. Instead of being a spoilt young beauty, with every wish forestalled, every caprice gratified, his goddess was only a poor little girl who lived in an atmosphere of petty cares, petty worries, under the shadow of a great trouble, her father’s vice of drink. And as he thought about the girl in this new aspect his new-born infatuation seemed to die away, the glamour and the glow faded, and he thought of her only as a poor little nestling which, deprived of its natural right of warmth and love and tenderness, lives a starved life, but bears its privations with a brave look. And as he leaned against the yellow-washed wall he heard a slight noise, and started up. Miss Biron, candlestick in hand, was examining the injuries done to her back door. Bram opened his mouth to speak, but he stammered and uttered something unintelligible, taken aback as he was by the vast difference between the fancy picture he had been drawing of the young lady and the reality with which he was confronted. For instead of the wan, white face, the streaming eyes, the anxious and weary look he had expected to see, he found himself face to face with a cheery little creature, brisk in movement, bright of eyes, who looked up with a start when he appeared before her, and said rather sharply-- “This is your doing, I suppose? And instead of being scolded for the mischief you have done you expect to be thanked and perhaps rewarded, no doubt?” At first Bram could scarcely believe his ears. “Ah’m sorry for t’ damage Ah’ve done, miss,” he said hurriedly. “And that’s what Ah’ve waited for to tell yer, nowt but that. But it’s not so bad as it looks. It’s nobbut t’ bolt sprung off and a scratch to the paint outside. If you can let me have a look into your tool-chest, Ah’ll set it reght at once. And for t’ paint, Ah’ll come up for that to-morrow neght.” Miss Biron smiled graciously. The humble Bram had his sense of humor tickled by the airs she was giving herself now, as if she had forgotten altogether her helpless fright of only an hour before, and the relief with which she had hailed his disarming of her father.