"I don't care if she is Janet Page, I don't like her. She's not a bit like other girls." And another voice answered, "I don't either; she's so bossy." "Plain stuck up," a third voice added. Janet flushed crimson and fled. Harry remembered that she looked awfully queer, he said, when he told Mrs. Todd later, "She said she was going and not another word," he finished. Janet had indeed gone. She felt as though the world was falling about her ears. Try as she could, she could not keep the hot tears from coming. The brisk row did her good, and she started up the sand dunes with her usual expectant step. By the time she was in sight of the house, she was laughing at herself. "I may be different but I am not as bad as all that, and besides I don't like those girls any better than they like me, so we're even." She decided to read about Mr. Micawber in "David Copperfield." He always cheered her up when she was downhearted. The quiet of the old house soothed her feelings. She walked slowly around to the cellar window and opened it softly. Just as she was about to slip through it, a piece of tin hit her sharply on the nose. She jumped and looked up and directly into the gray eyes of the mysterious boy. He was sitting on the edge of the sloping roof not fifteen feet above her. "Hurt you?" he called down. "Not much," Janet answered, rubbing her nose, for it smarted. "Yes, it did; it's bleeding. Say, I'm awfully sorry. Wait a jiffy and I'll be down." He slid near the edge and jumped to the ground almost beside her. They looked at each other and then burst out laughing. Janet held her handkerchief up to her face and regarded him over the corner of it. "What were you doing up there?" she inquired. "You nearly scared me to death." "Well, I was kind of scared myself," the mysterious boy admitted. "I was fixing the roof up a bit. It leaks onto the books now you know, and I just happened to look down at you, I was so surprised that I let the tin drop. "I found my hat," he added after a minute, and grinned sheepishly. "Whatever made you leave it by our fence?" Janet inquired. "Did you see me jump over your wall the other day?" "Yes." "Well, I was bringing it to you then--" "And my dog barked at you." "No,--that is, he did, but that isn't what scared me. Your dog and I are great friends. It was the woman that came out of the house. I couldn't explain before her so I bolted." "Explain what?" "I wanted to show you something about taking a splinter out of a dog's paw and a way to put on a bandage so that it won't come off." Janet laughed, and he joined in. "I was after the same book the other day and I couldn't imagine who had taken it and then I found it beside your hat and I knew you must come here too." "Have you been coming long?" "Two years." "Oh, I've been here six months, but I found it the first week I was here." "Where do you live?" Janet inquired.