“So he does, Polly; but I have known fellows do that just to mislead the adversary.”
“Sorry adversaries that could be taken in so easily.” And with a saucy toss of her head she passed on, scarcely noticing the warning gesture of her father's finger as she went.
When she had found her work-basket and supplied herself with the means of occupying her fingers for an hour or so, she repaired to the garden and took her seat under a large elm, around whose massive trunk a mossy bench ran, divided by rustic-work into a series of separate places.
“What a churlish idea it was to erect these barricades, Miss Dill!” said Stapylton as he seated himself at her side; “how unpicturesque and how prudish!”
“It was a simple notion of my brother Tom's,” said she, smiling, “who thought people would not be less agreeable by being reminded that they had a place of their own, and ought not to invade that of their neighbor.”
“What an unsocial thought!”
“Poor Tom! A strange reproach to make against you,” said she, laughing out.
“By the way, has n't he turned out a hero,—saved a ship and all she carried from the flames,—and all at the hazard of his own life?”
“He has done a very gallant thing; and, what's more, I 'll venture to say there is not a man who saw it thinks so little of it as himself.”
“I suppose that every brave man has more or less of that feeling.”