"A fight, my dear?" exclaimed the old lady.
"Yes," nodded Margaret; "between two men; and what made it worse, one was a gentleman."
"A gentleman, Margaret! Gentlemen don't fight, my dear."
"So I thought," she said, naively; "but this one does anyway, and fights very well," she added. "At least, he knocked the other one down—a great tall fellow—as if he had been shot."
"Bless my heart! where was this?"
"Oh, just in the village here. The man—he was an ill-tempered fellow, I'm sure, with such a dreadful face—kicked a poor dog, and the gentleman, who was near, fought him for it."
"Good gracious me! And, of course, you ran away?"
The girl laughed rather strangely.
"No, I didn't, grandma. I ought to have done so, I meant to do so, but—well, I didn't. I wish I had, for the creature had the impudence to speak to me!"
"What—the man?" aghast.