A man came tramping through the brush with a rod in his hand and a creel slung from his shoulder. He wore long wading boots and he walked through the brook into which the waters of the spring trickled, and so reached the automobile party. Tom Jonah stood up, but did not growl at him.
The man was lifting his cap and going right by when Dot Kenway uttered a squeal of surprise.
“Oh, Tess! Oh, Aggie!” she cried. “Here’s my sick man now.”
At the same moment Neale O’Neil recognized the fisherman and shouted to him:
“Hi, Mr. Maynard! What luck to-day?”
The other turned a single glance at Neale and nodded, his attention immediately becoming fixed on Dot. He approached her with a smile warming his countenance, which seemed rather saturnine in repose.
“This is my kind little friend,” he said; and although his face was deeply flushed it was not from the same cause as when the smallest Corner House girl had previously met him. “So you remember me?”
“Oh, yes, sir,” Dot replied, a little bashfully, giving him her hand.
“And how is the dolly’s health? But this isn’t the one?” asked Mr. Maynard, showing that he had a good memory for some incidents of that former unfortunate afternoon.
“Oh, yes; this is my Alice-doll,” said Dot, eagerly.