“You look exactly as if you had been in a fight.”
“So I have.”
“Oh, Peter! But are you—are you going to fix the dog’s leg here?”
“Oh, I’ll take him down to the barn, if you like. I suppose you will all make a terrible fuss, if I don’t. Isn’t he a nice dog? Some fellows were hurting him, but we floored ’em, Carney and I.”
Carney, in the meantime, had retired to the least conspicuous position that he could find. He stood far back by the door, and he twirled his shabby cap in his hand, looking the while as though he would prefer to be in any place but that in which he found himself.
Honor and Victoria, who were on the broad staircase, turned towards one another. Honor’s pretty eyebrows were drawn together in a frown, and her face said as plainly as though she had spoken, “What are we to do about it?”
“I will get the witch hazel,” said Victoria, aloud, “and will bring it down to the barn. You and—and your friend had better take the dog down there now, Peter, and make a bed for him.”
“Bring some old rags,” commanded Peter, “and something nice and soft for him to lie on. This would do,” he added, picking up a white chudda shawl which hung over the back of one of the hall chairs.
“My best white shawl!” cried Katherine, springing forward just in time to rescue it before it was wrapped about the suffering animal. “What are you thinking of, Peter? Do take that dirty dog out of the house! I never saw such a boy.”
Victoria, as she hurried up the stairs, sighed to herself.