"I feel I couldn't help trying to save the poor fox! If I saw him again, I'd do it again, I know I would!"
Dawn's father welcomed the children heartily, but he laid his hand on Christina's shoulder, and looked down upon her with a pleased look in his eyes.
"I wish I'd been there!" he said. "I have to thank you for an inspiration, Christina. I was wanting a subject badly, and you have given it to me. Do you know what my picture is going to be called? 'Defying the Hunt!'" He laughed as he spoke, then showed Christina a large canvas on which were the bare outlines of a few horses, a pack of hounds, and a very small child in the midst of the pack beating them back with her tiny hands, whilst her back was firmly set against an old wooden door.
"I want you to come and sit for me, will you? Dawn is such a flibberty-jibbet that I can't keep him still. And so you gave them a piece of your mind, did you? I'm not a sportsman, and I'm not sure that I'm not on your side."
"Oh, you couldn't be on Tina's side!" exclaimed Puggy. "I think she was an awful silly!"
"That's John Bull's opinion, but it isn't mine."
Mr. O'Flagherty delighted in Mrs. Maclahan's fancy about the children. He always called them the "United Kingdom," and Puggy was never anything but "John Bull" with him.
Puggy looked slightly abashed. He had a great admiration for Dawn's father, and did not like his disapproval in any shape or form.
"Well, you can't say hunting is wrong!" he said.
Mr. O'Flagherty laughed.