Phil loved Alice devotedly. She was his confidante, his defender, but he feared more the disapproval of her sweet eyes when he had done wrong than the threatened punishment of his uncle. “I only meant to be gone just a little while,” Phil went on to say. “And you were away the whole afternoon. It is a pity the days are so short. And you don't know what you lost.” “No great, I guess.” “Celia and her mother were here. They stayed all the afternoon.” “Celia Howard? Did she wonder where I was?” “I don't know. She didn't say anything about it. What a dear little thing she is!” “And she can say pretty cutting things.” “Oh, can she? Perhaps you'd better run down to the village before dark and take her these flowers.” “I'm not going. I'd rather you should have the flowers.” And Phil spoke the truth this time. Celia, who was altogether too young to occupy seriously the mind of a lad of twelve, had nevertheless gained an ascendancy over him because of her willful, perverse, and sometimes scornful ways, and because she was different from the other girls of the school. She had read many more books than Phil, for she had access to a library, and she could tell him much of a world that he only heard of through books and newspapers, which latter he had no habit of reading. He liked, therefore, to be with Celia, not withstanding her little airs of superiority, and if she patronized him, as she certainly did, probably the simple-minded young gentleman, who was unconsciously bred in the belief that he and his own kin had no superiors anywhere, never noticed it. To be sure they quarreled a good deal, but truth to say Phil was never more fascinated with the little witch, whom he felt himself strong enough to protect, than when she showed a pretty temper. He rather liked to be ordered about by the little tyrant. And sometimes he wished that Murad Ault, the big boy of the school, would be rude to the small damsel, so that he could show her how a knight would act under such circumstances. Murad Ault stood to Phil for the satanic element in his peaceful world. He was not only big and strong of limb and broad of chest, but he was very swarthy, and had closely curled black hair. He feared nothing, not even the teacher, and was always doing some dare-devil thing to frighten the children. And because he was dark, morose, and made no friends, and wished none, but went solitary his own dark way, Phil fancied that he must have Spanish blood in his veins, and would no doubt grow up to be a pirate. No other boy in the winter could skate like Murad Ault, with such strength and grace and recklessness--thin ice and thick ice were all one to him, but he skated along, dashing in and out, and sweeping away up and down the river in a whirl of vigor and daring, like a black marauder. Yet he was best and most awesome in the swimming pond in summer--though it was believed that he dared go in in the bitter winter,