a cockshy," said Dexter.
"Seems to me that nearly everything nice that you want to do is wrong."

"Oh no," said Helen, smiling at the boy's puzzled face.

"Seems like it," said Dexter. "I say, he was going to scold me, only he
found I was with you, and that made him stop. Wish I hadn't thrown the
stone."

"So do I," said Helen quickly. "Come, you have broken yourself off
several bad habits this last week, and I shall hope soon to find that
you have stopped throwing stones."

"But mayn't I throw anything else?"

"Oh yes; your ball."

"But I haven't got a ball."

"Then you shall have one," said Helen. "We'll buy one as we go back.
There, it was a mistake, Dexter, so remember not to do it again."

They were now on the banks of the glancing river, the hay having been
lately cut, and the way open right to the water's edge.

"Yes, I'll remember," said Dexter. "Look--look at the fish. Oh, don't
I wish I had a rod and line! Here, wait a moment."

He was down on his chest, reaching with his hand in the shallow water.

"Why, Dexter," said Helen, laughing, "you surely did not think that you
could catch fishes with your hand!"

"No," said the boy, going cautiously forward and striking an attitude;
"but you see me hit one."

As he spoke he threw a large round pebble which he had picked out of the
river-bed with great force, making the water splash up, while, instead
of sinking, the stone skipped from the surface, dipped again, and then
disappeared.

As the stone made its last splash, the reality of what he had done
seemed to come to him, and he turned scarlet as he met Helen's eyes.

"Dexter!" she said reproachfully.

The boy took off his cap, looked in it, rubbed his closely cropped head
in a puzzled way, and put his cap slowly on again, to stand once more
gazing at his companion.

"I can't tell how it is," he said dolefully. "I think there must be
something wrong in my head. It don't go right. I never mean to do what
you don't like, but somehow I always do."

"Look there, Dexter," said Helen quickly; "those bullocks seem vicious;
we had better go back."

She pointed to a drove of bullocks which had been put in the newly-cut
meadows by one of the butchers in the town, and the actions of the
animals were enough to startle any woman, for, being teased by the
flies, they were careering round the field with heads down and tails up,
in a lumbering gallop, and approaching the spot where the couple stood