"Yes—to pretend he hadn't recognised me that day in the town, and—"
"Perhaps he cannot remember faces," the little girl put in eagerly; "you may depend that's it! Didn't you say he told you he had been hoping to meet you?"
"Yes."
"Well, he wouldn't have said that if he'd known he'd meet you, would he?"
"I don't know. Perhaps not. He certainly looked as though he was speaking the truth."
Tom, on his return home, had found Nellie in the yard at the back of the house, where it was cool and shady on this hot August day. She was reclining in a hammock chair, and had been listlessly looking over a picture-book which had not interested her much; her thin little face had brightened when her brother joined her, and it was now expressive of eager attention.
"I think there is something very odd about him," Tom continued, his mind still dwelling on Peter Perry; "I can't understand him at all. One thing I am sure of, and that is that he is a coward; he was in a regular panic of fear at the idea of the dogs going for each other again."
"Well, it's dreadful to see a dog-fight," Nellie remarked, with a shudder; "I know it makes me shake all over, and—"
"But then you're a girl!" Tom broke in. "If you were a boy you wouldn't feel like that!"
"I believe I should! And dogs make such a frightful noise when they fight!"