But Pet always modestly declined these kind invitations. She knew her father's pride, and his aversion to the patronage of rich people.
CHAPTER II.
THE FALLING BOARD.
One afternoon, Pet had been taking an extra lesson from Miss Pillbody, and had started homeward with a light heart, humming to herself a musical exercise which she had practised for the first time that day. A few doors from Miss Pillbody's, some workmen were repairing a wooden awning. The framework was covered with loose boards, which the carpenters were about to nail down. A feminine dread of danger would have induced Pet to make a wide detour of this awning; but her mind was so fully occupied by the musical exercise, that she walked, unheeding, right under it.
"Look out! look out!" shrieked a chorus of voices overhead, accompanied by a rattle of falling boards. Pet sprang forward just in time to escape one of them, and to catch another on her shoulder. It touched her gently, not even abrading her skin, for its fall had been stopped midway by a young man.
"Stupid!" "Silly creature!" "The girl's a blockhead!" "Where's her eyes, I wonder?" shouted the carpenters, after the manner of carmen and stage drivers, when you narrowly escape being run over by their carelessness, at the crossings.
"Shut up!" said the young man, savagely. "Why the d---l don't you keep your boards where they belong, instead of tumbling them down on people's heads?--I hope you are not hurt, miss?" (in a gentle voice).
"Oh, no; not at all. I am sure I thank you, sir, very much." Pet blushed, and hurried away.
The young man and the carpenters then exchanged the customary abusive epithets with each other, which might have resulted in something more serious (though such verbal encounters rarely do), but for the desire of the young man to overtake the young girl whom he had saved from a bruised shoulder, or a worse accident. Shaking his fist at the four jeering carpenters, and muttering a farewell execration between his teeth, he rapidly followed Pet, and soon came up with her.