"DEAR PERCIVAL: Mamma was cross with Robin and sent him away do tell him I'm all right, and he is not to mind he will be sure to be about somewhere It is very stupid being shut up here Addie says she can't go running about giving messages to boys and Papa said if he saw him he should certainly punch his head so please tell him he is not to bother himself about me I shall soon be all right." Percival went away, smiling a little at his letter and at Lottie herself. Just as he reached the first of the fields which were the short cut from the house, he spied Robin lurking on the other side of the hedge, with Jack at his heels. He halted, and called "Robin! Robin Wingfield! I want to speak to you." The boy hesitated: "There's a gate farther on." Coming to the gate, Percival rested his arms on it and looked at Robin. The boy was not big for his age, but there was a good deal of cleverness in his upturned freckled face. "I've a message for you," said the young man. "From her?" Robin indicated the Blakes' house with a jerk of his head. "Yes. She asked me to tell you that she is all right, though, of course, she can't come out at present. She made sure I should find you somewhere about." Robin nodded: "I did try to hear how she was, but that old dragon--" "Meaning my friend Mrs. Blake?" said young Thorne. "Ah! Hardly civil perhaps, but forcible." "Well--Mrs. Blake, then--caught me in the shrubbery and pitched into me. Said I ought to be ashamed of myself. Supposed I should be satisfied when I'd broken Lottie's neck. Told me I'd better not show my face there again." "Well," said Percival, "you couldn't expect Mrs. Blake to be particularly delighted with your afternoon's work. And, Wingfield, though I was especially to tell you that you were not to vex yourself about it, you really ought to be more careful. Knocking a young lady's eye half out--" "Young lady!" in a tone of intense scorn. "Lottie isn't a _young lady_." "Oh! isn't she?" said Percival. "I should think not, indeed!" And Robin eyed the big young man who was laughing at him as if he meditated wiping out the insult to Lottie then and there. But even with Jack, his sturdy satellite, to help, it was not to be thought of. "She's a brick!" said Cock Robin, half to himself. "No doubt," said Percival. "But, as I was saying, it isn't exactly the way to treat her.--At least--I don't know: upon my word, I don't know," he soliloquized. "Judging by most women's novels, from _Jane Eyre_ downward, the taste for muscular bullies prevails. Robin may be the coming hero--who knows?--and courtship commencing with a black eye the future fashion.--Well, Robin, any answer?" "Tell her I hope she'll soon be all right. Shall you see her?" "I can see that she gets any message you want to send." Robin groped among his treasures: "Look here: I brought away her knife that afternoon. She lent it me. She'd better have it--it's got four blades--she may want it, perhaps."