To one of these stumps the man led Caroline, and, seating her, he turned to the shelf above the fire and fumbled among the pots and pans there, producing finally a buttered roll, a piece of maple sugar, and a small fruit tart. "You must be hungry," he said simply, and Caroline ate greedily. After he had brought her a tin cup of the spring water, he selected a brown pipe from a half dozen on the shelf and began filling it from a leather pouch that hung on the tree. "Now let's hear all about it," he said easily. "I am running away," said Caroline abruptly. At that moment it really seemed that she had planned her flight from the hour that left her, tear-stained and disgraced, in her little bed. "They didn't treat you well?" he suggested, picking out a red ember from the coals on the point of a knife and applying it to the pipe. "I'm not to wear my knickers any more," Caroline said, with a gulp, "and my bathing suit has to have a skirt. I've got to stop p-playing with the b-boys--so much, that is," she added, honestly. The man turned his head slightly. "That seems hard," he said; "what's the reason?" "I'm 'most twelve," said Caroline; "you have to be a young lady, then." "I see," the man said. He looked at her thoughtfully. "I suppose you _would_ look larger in more clothes," he added. "That's it," she assured him, "I do. That's just it." "And so you expect to avoid all this by running away?" he asked, settling into his own stump seat. "I am afraid you can't do it." Caroline set her teeth. He regarded her quizzically. "See here," he went on, "I wish you'd take my advice in this matter." They confronted each other in the starlight, a strange pair before the dying fire. The moon had gone, and the stars, though bright, seemed less solid and less certainly gold than before. A cool breeze swept through the wood and Caroline shivered in her torn nightdress. The man stepped into the tent and returned with a long army cloak. This he wrapped round her and resumed his seat, with Rufus on his knee. "My name," he said, "is Peter. Everybody calls me that--just Peter. I don't know exactly why it is, but a lot of people--all over--have got into the way of taking my advice. Perhaps because I've knocked about all over the world more or less, and haven't got any wife or children or brothers and sisters of my own to advise, so I take it out on everybody else. Perhaps because I try to put myself in the other fellow's place before I advise him. Perhaps because I've had a little trouble of my own, here and there, and haven't forgotten it. Anyhow, I get used to talking things over." A gentle stirring seemed to pass through the woods: the birds spoke softly back and forth, a squirrel chattered. Again that cool wind swept over the trees.