can't knock you down, you back out and make peace."

"Well," answered the other, "there's no sport in licking a chap like
that. I'll tell you what, I'm frightfully hungry."

The two adventurers had plenty to tell at breakfast that morning, and
the interest in their capture lasted throughout the day. In the
evening the young folks went out a favourite walk through the lanes and
fields. Valentine and Barbara were running races on the way home; but
Jack lingered behind with Helen, who was gathering ferns.

"Let me carry your basket," he said.

"Oh, don't you trouble; you'd rather run on with Val and Barbara."

"I expect you don't want me. I know you think I've got no manners, and
in that you're about right."

"No, I don't think anything of the kind," said Helen, laughing. "I
shall be very glad if you will carry the basket, because I want to talk
to you."

"Now for a lecture," said Jack to himself.--"All right, fire away!"

"Well," began the girl, looking round at him with a twinkle in her eye,
"I want to know why you didn't set Val on to fight that boy this
morning, instead of offering to do it yourself."

"Oh, I don't know! It was my own idea; besides, I'm bigger and
stronger."

"You mean you did it so that Val shouldn't get hurt, in the same way
that you grappled with those three fellows who were ill-treating him at
school."

"Pooh! he didn't tell you that, did he? He always lets you know all
the bothers I get into. You'll think I do nothing but fight and kick
up rows; and," added the speaker, with a pathetic look of injured
innocence, "I've been behaving jolly well lately."

"I think you're a dear, good fellow for defending Val," said Helen
warmly, "and I've been wanting to thank you ever since."

"It was nothing. 'Twasn't half as much as he did for me when he
climbed that tree and freed my bootlace. I wish he wouldn't go telling
you everything that happens at school."

"You were saying a day or so ago," said the girl, slyly, "that you
didn't care for anybody, or for what people thought of you."

"Yes, I do," answered the ugly duckling; "I care a lot what you folks
think of me at Brenlands."

"Why?"

"Why, because you're all better than I am, and yet you never try to
make me feel it; but I do all the same. And I love you three and Queen
Mab; and I love the place; and I should like to live here always. But
outside of that," he added quickly, "I don't care a button for
anything."

"I wi