looked at her curiously. "Gee!" said he, "I c'n show
you plenty like that!" But he turned and looked at it a long, lingering
minute again.

"But we mustn't keep your mother waiting," said Margaret, remembering
and turning reluctantly toward the door. "Is this your dog? Isn't he a
beauty? He made me feel really as if he were glad to see me." She
stooped and laid her hand on the dog's head and smiled brightly up at
his master.

The boy's face lit with a smile, and he turned a keen, appreciative look
at the new teacher, for the first time genuinely interested in her.
"Cap's a good old scout," he admitted.

"So his name is Cap. Is that short for anything?"

"Cap'n."

"Captain. What a good name for him. He looks as if he were a captain,
and he waves that tail grandly, almost as if it might be a badge of
office. But who are you? You haven't told me your name yet. Are you Mrs.
Tanner's son?"

The boy nodded. "I'm just Bud Tanner."

"Then you are one of my pupils, aren't you? We must shake hands on
that." She put out her hand, but she was forced to go out after Bud's
reluctant red fist, take it by force in a strange grasp, and do all the
shaking; for Bud had never had that experience before in his life, and
he emerged from it with a very red face and a feeling as if his right
arm had been somehow lifted out of the same class with the rest of his
body. It was rather awful, too, that it happened just in the open
dining-room door, and that "preacher-boarder" watched the whole
performance. Bud put on an extra-deep frown and shuffled away from the
teacher, making a great show of putting Cap out of the dining-room,
though he always sat behind his master's chair at meals, much to the
discomfiture of the male boarder, who was slightly in awe of his
dogship, not having been admitted into friendship as the lady had been.

Mr. West stood back of his chair, awaiting the arrival of the new
boarder, an expectant smile on his face, and rubbing his hands together
with much the same effect as a wolf licking his lips in anticipation of
a victim. In spite of her resolves to like the man, Margaret was again
struck with aversion as she saw him standing there, and was intensely
relieved when she found that the seat assigned to her was on the
opposite side of the table from him, and beside Bud. West, however, did
not seem to be pleased with the arrangement, and, stepping around the
table, said to his landlady:

"Did you mean me to sit ove