Then Hugh John leaped from his cycle by the wall. "Sit down, Nipper," he said. "I have something to say to you." "Oh, I dare say," said Nipper; "you want to get out of fighting." "Very well--you think so. I shall show you!" said Hugh John. "But first you have got to listen. You are troubling Elizabeth Fortinbras. She does not mean to be troubled. She will go away if you do not stop going into the shop. She told me so. She has always been my friend, and my sister's friend. Her father and mother are no use to such a girl. That is why I have tried to be a brother to her----" "Brother, is it?" shouted Nipper, clenching his fists. "I will show you what it is to take a girl from Nipper Donnan. You were making love to her." "I am her brother. She is my sister," Hugh John repeated, with his usual quiet persistency. "She is not yours in any way. Therefore I cannot take from you what you never possessed." "I love her, and I will kill you, Hugh John Picton Smith!" moaned poor Nipper, his whole body shaking with impotent anger. "Very well, you can try, though you are older," said Hugh John; "only, if I win, you will let Elizabeth Fortinbras alone." "All right," said Nipper, "I agree. And if I lick you, you will stop prejudicing her against me!" "You won't win!" prophesied Hugh John still more quietly. * * * * * And that is why Elizabeth Fortinbras' afternoons and evenings at New Erin Villa were thenceforward full of peace. Also why no young butcher hung any more over the counter, and why Mr. Nipper Donnan spent his evenings in the kitchen with Meg Linwood. It explains also why, when he came to say good-by to Elizabeth Fortinbras, Hugh John had a split lip. Yet the girl asked no questions of her champion. She did not appear to notice the slight wound, and she sent away Hugh John with a single token of (sisterly) gratitude, and the curious reflection that a split lip does not spoil kissing nearly so much as a fellow might think. XIII "UNTO US AS A DAUGHTER" _November 2. The same Age._ [It is really the first of the month, but I date it the second, because the first is a Sunday, you see.] After the fine weather of July came a horrid rainy spell. Now I don't mind so much when the days are short, the trees bare, and the time for winter lamps and winter fires is come. Then you can just shut yourself up, get some books you have been promising yourself for a long time to look at--and there you are. But deluged park, dripping shrubbery, Esk-water growling turbidly at the foot of the Low Park, all the noble marine architecture of the two Torres Vedrases deep under swirling froth--that is what I hate, and especially with light to see it by--oh, good fourteen to sixteen hours of it. Pitter, patter on the roof, a sprinkle of broad drops on the window-panes from the trees swishing in the wind outside. After the first three days it grows unbearable.