“I made it up out of the advertisements,” said Master Wimble. “They always put in that sort of thing. I did it for her.” “Father said I might,” ventured the little girl, between apology and self-defence. “At leastways he said I might try and find a good home for him.” “He didn’t mean that way, you bet,” said the boy, glancing slyly up at the stranger. “No,” said Judy, her small mouth tightening a little. “When he saw it in the newspaper this morning he was simply furiated. He is a very boracic man.” The boy stifled an explosion. “Isn’t she funny?” he whispered. “O! boracic,” said Gilead; and added, in some vague association of ideas, “Is he a doctor?--O! no; a clergyman, I suppose?” The boy plucked his sleeve. “He’s neither the one nor the other,” he confided to his private ear. “He’s a radical.” He spoke the word with a weight of social significance. “He stood for Henley in the last by-election, but our man beat him at the post. He doesn’t live here. He’s only taken the house for the summer. He isn’t a gentleman, you know; he’s a radical; but _she’s_ all right.” The magnificence of the distinction quite silenced Gilead. He walked on while the boy strutted on; but suddenly he was moved very sweetly to feel little confiding fingers thrust into his. “Please,” said the little girl, who had slipped round to his side, “have you really and truly come about Pilot?” “Really and truly,” said Gilead, looking down with a smile. “Do you want to part with him?” “No,” said the child, flushing very pink. “Perhaps someone else does?” suggested Gilead. “Yes, father.” “Shall I see _him_ about it, then?” She did not answer. “What’s wrong with him--the dog, I mean?” asked the young man. The boy answered for her, with a contemptuous laugh. “He bit somebody. Anybody would have, _her_.” Gilead kept a discreet silence. “Here’s the gate of the Rectory, if you want to see Mr Brown,” said the boy, stopping; and then Gilead saw that the little girl was in floods of tears. He bent down, very concerned. “If he _has_ to go, Judy,” he whispered, “he shall find a good friend.” “O! don’t be such a ninny,” said the boy. “What’s a dog anyway? I’m not going to go fishing with you, you know, if you’re going on like this.” He walked off, whistling. She sniffed once or twice, dried her eyes on her sleeve, and fled after him. Gilead, watching the two a moment, turned through a gate into a leafy drive, which swept round a semi-circle of lawn to the front of a white-latticed creeper-hung house of two storeys, where, ringing the bell, he sent in his card to Mr Brown. He had not waited a minute in an untidy tobacco-reeking study, into which he had been informally and rather suspiciously shown, when a gentleman came hurrying in with an air of effusive cordiality which took him completely by surprise.