ned on. His face fell a
little, though, when he saw the table, and his father already eating.

"I'm awfully sorry I'm late," he said disappointedly. "I thought I
should have been in heaps of time. I've got you some jolly fine trout,
father. I meant them for your supper. Just look! Aren't they
beauties?" and he thrust his basket over the table and held it right
under his father's nose. The mud and green slime dripped on tablecloth
and silver and on the bread, and even on Dr. Trenire's plate and the
food he was eating.

The doctor's much-tried patience gave way at last. "Look at the mess
you are making--all over my food too! Look at the filth you have
brought in!" he exclaimed angrily. "Take it away! take it away!
What do you mean by coming into the room in that condition, bringing a
filthy thing like that and pushing it under my very nose when you see I
am eating? And why, Dan, once more, are you not here and decently neat,
when a meal is ready? It is perfectly disgraceful. Here am I, and
supper has been on the table I don't know how long, and only one of you
is ready to sit down with me. Anthony is in bed, or somewhere else,
Kitty is racing the house to find him, and you--I am ashamed of you,
sir, for coming into a room in such a condition. You are perfectly
hopeless. Here, take away my plate, take everything; you have quite
spoilt my appetite. I couldn't eat another mouthful at such a table!"
and Dr. Trenire rose in hot impatience and flung out of the room.

For a second Dan seemed unable to believe his ears, then without a word
he closed his basket and walked away. He was more deeply hurt than he
had ever been in his life before, and his face showed it. Kitty and
Tony, hesitating in the hall, saw it, and their eyes filled with tears.
"Throw it away, will you?" he said in a choked voice, holding out the
unfortunate basket to Kitty.

Kitty, knowing how she would have felt under similar circumstances, took
it without looking at him; instinctive delicacy told her not to.
"Father didn't mean it," she whispered consolingly. "You will come down
and have some supper when you have changed, won't you?"

They were not a demonstrative family; in fact, any lavishly expressed
sympathy or affection would have embarrassed them; but they understood
each other, and most of them possessed in a marked degree the power of
expressing both feelings without a word being spoken.

Dan understood Kitty, but it was too