Davy hopped with joy. "Wait 'til I tell the fellers. I guess you'll see 'em round, even if they do get a lickin'! But, say," he stopped short, inspired by a sudden thought, "mebbe now Mis' Leavitt's niece b'longs they won't have to sneak!"
Peter Hyde walked back with Nancy and Davy as far as the stone wall. From, the corner of her eye Nancy was, quite against her will, admiring the straight figure whose strength was only made more evident by the rough working clothes.
"He seems nice—for a hired man," she was thinking, all the while she was answering Davy's boyish questions.
And more than once, as he watched Nancy, that first perplexing look came back into Peter Hyde's eyes.
"Why, she isn't a kid, after all!"
CHAPTER X
THE HIRED MAN
"Claire, darling—
"It's after ten o'clock at night and here on North Hero that's like four in the morning in New York, but I can't wait another minute to write to you. The funniest thing has happened—only I'll save it for the end of my letter.