“There is one thing we must have before the next match,” said the manager of the team, as the players were gathered in the dressing-rooms after the game, “and that is a rope to keep the people back. They _will_ crowd on the field, and get in the way of the half-backs, and, besides, it is not safe for them to stand so near. Carr knocked over a little boy this afternoon, and hurt him quite badly, I believe.” “What’s that?” said Richard Carr, turning from the group of substitutes who were explaining how they would have played the game and tendering congratulations. “I was saying,” continued the manager, “that we ought to have a rope to keep the people off the field; they interfere with the game; and they say that you hurt a little fellow when you ran into the crowd during the last half.” “Those boys shouldn’t be allowed to stand in front there,” said Richard Carr; “but I didn’t know I hurt him. Who was he? where does he live? Do you know?” “It was the widow Waller’s son, sir,” volunteered Sam, the colored attendant. “That’s her house with the trees around it; you can see the roof from here. I think that’s where they took him.” “Took him!” exclaimed Richard Carr, catching up his great-coat. “Was he so badly hurt? You wait until I come back, Sam.” A pale, gentle-faced woman, who looked as if she had been crying, came to the door when Richard Carr rang the bell of the cottage which had been pointed out to him from the athletic grounds. When she saw his foot-ball costume, the look of welcome on her face died out very suddenly. “Does the little boy live here who was hurt on the athletic grounds?” asked Richard Carr, wondering if it could have been the doctor she was expecting. “Yes, sir,” answered the lady, coldly. “I came to see how he was; I am the man who ran against him. I wish to explain to you how it happened--I suppose you are Mrs. Waller?” (Richard Carr hesitated, and bowed, but the lady only bowed her head in return, and said nothing.) “It was accidental, of course,” continued Carr. “He was in the crowd when I ran in after the ball; it was flying over our heads, and I was looking up at it and didn’t see him. I hope he is all right now.” Before the lady could answer, Richard Carr’s eyes wandered from her face and caught sight of a little figure lying on a sofa in the wide hall. Stepping across the floor as lightly as he could in his heavy shoes, Carr sat down beside Arthur on the sofa. “Well, old man,” he said, taking Arthur’s hands in his, “I hope I didn’t hurt you much. No bones broken,--are there? You were very plucky not to cry. It was a very hard fall, and I’m very, very sorry; but I didn’t see you, you know.”