in horror from her wrists and from her long hands, tanned by sun and wind,
seamed with bramble-scratches and smeared with school-room ink? Once Lottie
came home with an unmistakable black eye, for which Robin's cricket-ball
was accountable. Then, indeed, Mrs. Blake felt that her cup of bitterness
was full to overflowing, though Lottie did assure her, "You should have
seen Jack's eye last April: his was much more swollen, and all sorts of
colors, than mine." It was impossible to avoid the conclusion that Jack
must have been, to say the least of it, unpleasant to look at. Percival
happened to come to the house just then, and was tranquilly amused at the
good lady's despair. It was before the Blakes knew much of Horace, and she
had not yet discovered that Percival's cousin was so much more friendly
than Percival himself; so she made the latter her confidant. He recommended
a raw beefsteak with a gravity worthy of a Spanish grandee. He was not
allowed to see Lottie, who was kept in seclusion as being half culprit,
half invalid, and wholly unpresentable; but as he was going away the
servant gave him a little note in Lottie's boyish scrawl:

"DEAR PERCIVAL: Mamma was cross with Robin and sent him away
do tell him I'm all right, and he is not to mind he will be
sure to be about somewhere It is very stupid being shut up
here Addie says she can't go running about giving messages
to boys and Papa said if he saw him he should certainly
punch his head so please tell him he is not to bother
himself about me I shall soon be all right."

Percival went away, smiling a little at his letter and at Lottie herself.
Just as he reached the first of the fields which were the short cut from
the house, he spied Robin lurking on the other side of the hedge, with Jack
at his heels. He halted, and called "Robin! Robin Wingfield! I want to
speak to you."