“I’m not struck, am I?” he asked half nervously.  “I am very hot, Kitty.  Is it the lightning?”

“No,” said Kitty cheerfully, “it is feathers,” and she flung back the pile of quilts.  “Poor Tony.  Get up, dear, and come down and have some supper.  It is all ready, and father was wondering where you were.”

Tony slipped with grateful obedience from his protection and followed Kitty, but rather languidly, it is true, for he was very hot and exhausted, and very rumpled, all but his sweet temper, which was quite unruffled.

“Is Dan come back?” he asked eagerly, as he crept slowly down the stairs.

“Dan!” cried Kitty, stopping and looking back at him anxiously.  She remembered again then that she had not seen Dan since her return.  “Did he go out?”

“Yes, he went to catch some fishes for daddy’s supper.  He heard you tell Betty to have a nice one ready, and he said, ’There’s sure to be nothing nice in the house; there never is.  I’ll go and catch some trout,’ and he went.  Do you think he was out in all that funder and lightning?” Then, seeing Kitty’s startled look, Tony grew frightened too.  “You don’t fink he is hurt, do you, Kitty?” he asked anxiously.  “You don’t fink Dan has been struck, do you?”

But at that moment, to their intense relief, Dan himself crossed the hall.  From his appearance he might have been actually in the stream, getting the trout out without rod or line.  Water was running off his hat, his clothes, and his boots.  Tony heard it squishing with every step he took, and thought how splendid and manly it seemed.

Kitty called out to him, but Dan did not stay to talk.

“Where’s father?” he asked, turning a very flushed but very triumphant face towards them, and waving his basket proudly.

“In the dining-room,” said Kitty, and Dan hastened 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.