gilists trying a preliminary fall, or a couple of duellists pointing
their pistols. The next moment the dogs were rolling over and over each
other on the narrow path, worrying each other with the horrible
snarling noise that accompanies such a performance.

May danced a frantic dance round the combatants, screamed shrilly, and
made dangerous, ineffectual darts at Tray. The servant girl neither
danced, nor screamed, nor made darts; she stood stolidly still, with
something between a gape and a grin on her broad red face. She had not
the passion for dog-fights entertained by the _gamins_ of the streets,
such fights were simply immaterial trifles to her amidst the weightier
concerns of her life; and she had seen her master's dog get too many
kicks in the ribs--a discipline from which he rose up howling but not
greatly injured--to be troubled with any sensitive fears as to his
safety. Besides his enemy was a small beast, a lady's dog, whom Growler
could dispose of in a twinkling, if his temper were up.

"Oh! can you not call off your dog?" wailed May in her agony. "He will
kill Tray. Oh! my Tray, my Tray," and she made another rush to rescue
her pet.

"Don't, May, you'll be bitten," implored Dora.

"He don't mind me, miss, not one bit, our Growler don't," said the
composed damsel, as if Growler's indifference were rather a feather in
his cap.

Alas! for any attention that the victim paid to May's desperate
remonstrances. She had in fact no right to reproach the enemy's
temporary proprietress for her lack of authority over her four-footed
companion. But poor May in her misery was neither logical nor just. She
turned on the other with a passionate challenge, "What business have you
to bring out a horrid brute like that, which you cannot master, to kill
other people's dear little pets?"

"Hush, hush, May," besought Dora, "I think they are leaving off." There
was a slight cessation in the hostilities. "The noise you are making may
set them on again."

"It were your dog as begun it." Growler's sponsor defended both herself
and Growler defiantly.

"Oh!" screamed May, "they're at it again. Tray is down and the cruel
monster is at his throat. Will nobody help us? Will nobody save my poor
little dog?"

The girls were carrying neither sunshades nor umbrellas. They could not
reach the lower boughs of the trees to pull down a switch, but just as
May was springing forward to dare the worst herself, sooner than see
Tray perish