He stiffened.  One could see the struggle within him.

“Well, miss, I can’t see but that I’ve just got to stay on—­for awhile.  Until he’s tired of me and my ways, anyhow,” he said gloomily.

Mary Virginia dismissed my tiredness with an airy wave of her hand.  She smiled.

“Do you know,” said she earnestly, “I’ve had the funniest idea about you, from the very first time I saw you?  Well, I have.  I’ve somehow got the notion that you and the Padre belong.  I think that’s why you came.  I think you belong right here, in that darling little house, studying butterflies and mounting them so beautifully they look alive.  I think you’re never going to go away anywhere any more, but that you’re going to stay right here as long as you live!”

His face turned an ugly white, and his mouth fell open.  He looked at Mary Virginia almost with horror—­Saul might have looked thus at the Witch of Endor when she summoned the shade of Samuel to tell him that the kingdom had been rent from his hand and his fate was upon him.

Mary Virginia nodded, thoughtfully.

“I feel so sure of it,” said she, confidently, “that I’m going to ask you to do me a favor.  I want you to take care of Kerry for me.  You know I’m going away to school next week, and—­he can’t stay at home when I’m not there.  My father’s away frequently, and he couldn’t take Kerry about with him, of course.  And he couldn’t be left with the servants—­somehow he doesn’t like the colored people.  He always growls at them, and they’re afraid of him.  And my mother dislikes dogs intensely—­she’s afraid of them, except those horrible little toy-things that aren’t dogs any more.”  The scorn of the real dog-lover was in her voice.  “Kerry’s used to the Parish House.  He loves the Padre, he’ll soon love you, and he likes to play with Pitache, so Madame wouldn’t mind his being here.  And—­I’d be more satisfied in my mind if he were with somebody that—­that needed him—­and would like him a whole lot—­somebody like you,” she finished.

Now, Mary Virginia regarded Kerry even as the apple of her eye.  The dog was a noble and beautiful specimen of his race, thoroughbred to the bone, a fine field dog, and the pride of the child’s heart.  He was what only that most delightful of dogs, a thoroughbred Irish setter, can be.  John Flint gasped.  Something perplexed, incredulous, painful, dazzled, crept into his face and looked out of his eyes.

“Me?” he gasped.  “You mean you’re willing to let me keep your dog for you?  Yours?”

“I want to give him to you,” said Mary Virginia bravely enough, though her voice trembled.  “I am perfectly sure you’ll love him—­better than any one else in the world would, except me myself.  I don’t know why I know that, but I do know it.  If you wanted to go away, later on, why, you could turn him over to the Padre, because of course you wouldn’t want to have a dog following you about everywhere.  They’re a lot of bother.  But—­somehow, I think you’ll keep him.  I think you’ll love him.  He—­he’s a darling dog.”  She was too proud to turn her head aside, but two large tears rolled down her cheeks, like dew upon a rose.