"You're not going to kill him," he said nervously, and he pointed a trembling finger at the wriggling snake. For answer, Janet picked up a large stone. Harry turned his face away. He wanted to put his fingers in his ears so that he would not hear the soft thud that followed, but the frantic dog made that impossible. "Come on back," Janet said at last; "he's quite dead, and I've thrown him into the bushes, so you won't even have to look at him." Her voice sounded very grown up and patronizing, and Harry justly resented it. "Now look here, Janet Page," he exploded; "you needn't put on airs. It's not such a big thing to kill a snake anyway," he finished lamely. "I could have done it only I didn't see any sense in it; even if it had bitten Boru, it wouldn't have hurt him any." Harry was trying hard to justify an act that he hardly understood himself. He was a nice boy, two years Janet's senior, and until to-day he had never let her forget his advantage. He tried to assert it now. "You see, I'm older than you are and I've got lots more sense. I knew that a snake like that couldn't really hurt a dog and so I just--" He paused, and under Janet's cool gaze he blushed very slowly, right up to the roots of his hair. "Why don't you tell the truth?" she asked quietly. "You know you are afraid of snakes." "Well, what if I am?" Harry shifted his feet uncomfortably. "I can't help it, can I? Anyway, your grandmother says--" "Never mind what my grandmother says," Janet interrupted angrily. "I know it all by heart. She says you are a very mannerly little boy; that's because you never forget to take off your hat when you go into her room. And she says you're respectful; that's because you always say 'yes, ma'm; no ma'm; thank you, ma'm,' and she says you always look tidy, and that's because you never climb trees and always wear shoes and stockings, no matter how hot it is, and--" "Can't help it if my mother makes me, can I?" Harry blazed out. Janet paused to consider. "No, I don't suppose you can," she said at last; "only somehow I wish you were different." Her gaze traveled slowly from his round-toed boots to his neatly brushed hair; a dreamy look came into her eyes, and the little flecks of gold in the soft-brown iris caught the sun's rays and glistened. She sighed profoundly. "But if you couldn't kill a snake," she said, speaking more to herself than to him, "why, you couldn't ever kill a dragon, you see; nor ride a coal-black charger, nor fight for your lady's favor--" Her brow wrinkled in a puzzled frown, but it cleared almost at once. "I was forgetting," she laughed; "you wouldn't want to anyway, so it doesn't matter; that is, not so very much." She looked around her for Boru; he was busily investigating the remains of the snake in the bushes, but at her whistle he trotted obediently to her heel, and together they walked off down the road. Harry, after a miserable minute of indecision, followed.