stands looking at him with
laughing eyes, and panting breath, and two pretty hands pressed against
her bosom.

Mr. Dysart lets his disappointed arms fall to his sides, and assumes the
aggrieved air of one who has been done out of a good thing.

"You!" says she, when at last she can speak.

"I suppose so," returns he discontentedly. He might just as well have
been anyone else, or anywhere else--such a chance--and _gone_!

"Never were you so welcome!" cries she, dodging behind him as Tommy,
fully armed, and all alive, comes tearing round the corner. "Ah, ha,
Tommy, _sold_! I've got a champion now. I'm no longer shivering in my
shoes. Mr. Dysart will protect me--_won't_ you, Mr. Dysart?" to the
young man, who says "yes" without stirring a muscle. The heaviest bribe
would not have induced him to move, because, standing behind him, she
has laid her dainty fingers on his shoulders, from which safe position
she mocks at Tommy with security. Were the owners of the shoulders to
stir, the owners of the fingers might remove the delightful members.
Need it be said that, with this awful possibility before him, Mr. Dysart
is prepared to die at his post rather than budge an inch.

And, indeed, death seems imminent. Tommy charging round the
rhododendron, finding himself robbed of his expected scalp, grows
frantic, and makes desperate passes at Mr. Dysart's legs, which that
hero, being determined, as I have said, not to stir under any
provocation, circumvents with a considerable display of policy, such as:

"I say, Tommy, old boy, is that you? How d'ye do? Glad to see me, aren't
you?" This last very artfully with a view to softening the attacks. "You
don't know what I've brought you!" This is more artful still, and
distinctly a swindle, as he has brought him nothing, but on the spot he
determines to redeem himself with the help of the small toy-shops and
sweety shops down in the village. "Put down that fork like a good boy,
and let me tell you how----"

"Oh, _bother_ you!" says Tommy, indignantly. "I'd have had her only for
you! What brought you here now? Couldn't you have waited a bit?"

"Yes! what brought you?" says Miss Kavanagh, most disgracefully going
over to the other side, now that danger is at an end, and Tommy has
planted his impromptu tomahawk in a bed close by.

"Do you want to know?" says he quickly.

The fingers have been removed from his shoulders, and he is now at
liberty to turn round and look at the charmin