n animal could be so alarming," said Stella.

"You must be more careful in future," he answered. "Not that I want
you to be afraid--like Eileen. This brute had no business here. He
must have broken through the hedge. He might have got into the foals'
paddock. There's a way in for anything very determined where the water
runs in that far ditch."

"Oh, I'm glad he didn't get in among the pretty foals."

"It would have been a horrible thing, but better the foals than you."

He looked at her with a simple boyish tenderness. There was something
childish about her beauty, something boyish about the slight figure and
the curly head, borne out by her frank gaze.

"I wish I had killed the brute," he said, with a vengeful glance in the
direction of the quietly-feeding bull.

"You probably cut him with that stone, poor beast."

"Yes: it had a good sharp edge. How lucky I found it just there!"

He noticed that she turned very pale. Quickly his arm went round her
to give her support.

"You poor little thing!" he said. "I am so sorry. Are you better now?"

The colour came back to her face. She withdrew gently from his arm.

"I am all right," she said. "It was splendid how you came to my
rescue."

Her frank eyes thanked him in a way he found bewildering. He was very
goodly in his flannels, with his alert slender darkness and his bright
eyes, softened now as his gaze rested upon her.

"It won't make you afraid?" he asked anxiously. "I mean, of course,
you must be cautious; but any one would be afraid of Brady's bull.
Don't be timid like Eileen, who screams if a foal trots up to her, and
is afraid even of Shot."

He had quite forgotten the time when he had found Eileen's timidity
pleasing.

"Oh, I shall not be afraid of Shot, or the foals," she said, and
laughed. "After all," she lifted her eyes to him as though she asked
for pardon--"any one might be afraid of a bull. I'm not a coward for
that."

"Of course you're not," he answered, with a sound in his voice as
though she was very pleasant to him. "Bulls are treacherous brutes."

They went back slowly to where Eileen sat watching their approach
gloomily.

"Well!" she said. "You've been a long time. Wasn't that a horrid
brute? I never ran such danger in my life before."

"Stella ran a greater because you had taken care to slam the gate after
you," Terry said, with young condemning eyes. "I was only just in time
to save her from that brute."