“I got a new one last Thursday. The man who jumped over me in the station, and afterward carried me into the restaurant (such _strong_, steady arms as he had!) is a real hero! Oh, I am building a noble castle to put him in! He lives near here, for he passes the house three times a day. His eyes have a smile in them, and his mustache droops just like Charles I.’s, and he walks with a spring as if he were so full of life he longed to leap or fly, and his voice has a ring and resonance like an organ. The pretty girl that called him ‘Mark’ to-day, is his sister.” “Why not his wife?” “Wife! Don’t you suppose I know the cut of a married man, even on the street? He hasn’t the first symptom of the craft. He doesn’t swagger, and he doesn’t slink. A husband does one or the other.” Hetty laughed out merrily. There was a sense of relief in Hester’s return to the sarcastic raillery habitual to her, which made her mirth the heartier. A man crossing the lower slope of the orchard heard the bubbling peal, and looked in the direction of the big tree. So did his attendant, a huge St. Bernard dog. He tore up the acclivity, bellowing ferociously. Before his master’s shout arose above his baying he was almost upon the girls. At the instant of alarm, Hetty had thrown herself before the wheeled chair and the helpless occupant, and faced the foe. Crouching slightly, as for a spring, her face blenched, eyes wide and steady, she stood in the rosy shadow of the branches, both hands outthrown to ward off the bounding assailant. “What a pose!” was March’s first thought, professional instinct asserting itself, concerned though he was at the panic for which he was responsible. In the same lightning flash came—“I’ll paint that girl some day!” “Don’t be frightened!” he was calling, as he ran. “He will not hurt you!” Hester had shrieked feebly, and lay almost swooning among her cushions. Hetty had not uttered a sound, but, as the master laid his hand on the dog’s collar her knees gave way under her, and she sank down by the cripple’s chair, her head resting upon the edge of the wicker side. She was fighting desperately for composure, or the semblance of it, and did not look up when March began to apologize. “I am awfully sorry,” he panted, ruefully penitent. “And so will Thor—my dog, you know—be when he understands how badly he has behaved. He is seldom so inhospitable.” The words brought up Hetty’s head and wits. “Are we trespassing?” she queried anxiously. “We thought that this orchard was a part of the parsonage grounds, or we would not have come. It is we who should beg your pardon.”