“Shut up!” said the young man, savagely.  “Why the d—–­l don’t you keep your boards where they belong, instead of tumbling them down on people’s heads?—­I hope you are not hurt, miss?” (in a gentle voice).

“Oh, no; not at all.  I am sure I thank you, sir, very much.”  Pet blushed, and hurried away.

The young man and the carpenters then exchanged the customary abusive epithets with each other, which might have resulted in something more serious (though such verbal encounters rarely do), but for the desire of the young man to overtake the young girl whom he had saved from a bruised shoulder, or a worse accident.  Shaking his fist at the four jeering carpenters, and muttering a farewell execration between his teeth, he rapidly followed Pet, and soon came up with her.

“You are sure you are not hurt?” said he.  “Those scoundrelly workmen!  I’ll thrash one of them yet.”

Pet was confused by the second appearance of the young man at her side, though she knew that he would follow her; even her brief experience having taught her that it is not in the nature of man to do a kindness to a woman, without exacting a full acknowledgment for it.

“No, sir; I am not hurt the least bit,” she replied, looking in his face no more than gratitude and civility required.  Here she would have stopped, but she feared (charming simplicity of girlhood) that the young man would, some future day, get into trouble with the four carpenters.  So she added, timidly:  “As for the workmen, sir, they were not to blame.  It was all my fault, running into the danger.  I—­I beg, sir, that you won’t say another word to them.”

This was a long speech for timid Pet to make to a stranger, and she blushed fearfully at the end of it, and wished that the young man would go away.

“They deserve a thrashing, every one of them,” said he; “but, for your sake, I let them go.”  The young man spoke in a sweet voice, and his manner was respectful.  Pet had observed, in several hasty side glances, that he was nicely dressed, and not ill-featured, in all except the eyes.  But had his eyes been large and handsome, instead of small and forbidding, she would have desired his absence all the same.

“You say you are not hurt,” he continued; “but you may be, without knowing it.  I have heard of people receiving serious injuries, and never finding them out till they got home.  Have you far to go, miss?”

“Only two blocks farther,” said Pet, turning the corner.

“The very route I was going,” observed the young man.

Although Pet felt that the young man’s company was unnecessary and disagreeable, she did not like to tell him so.  She kept silence until she reached her home, when she said, “I stop here, sir.”  She would have added, “Good-by, sir,” or “Thank you, sir,” or something equivalent, but instinct checked the expression, and she darted into the entry (the door being accidentally ajar),