“Oh, all right. I have to be there—­it would be mean not to, when Walter is fighting for me.  I’m going to tie my colours on his arm—­that’s the thing to do when he’s my knight.  How lucky Mrs. Blythe gave me that pretty blue hair-ribbon for my birthday!  I’ve only worn it twice so it will be almost new.  But I wish I was sure Walter would win.  It will be so—­so humiliating if he doesn’t.”

Faith would have been yet more dubious if she could have seen her champion just then.  Walter had gone home from school with all his righteous anger at a low ebb and a very nasty feeling in its place.  He had to fight Dan Reese the next night—­and he didn’t want to—­he hated the thought of it.  And he kept thinking of it all the time.  Not for a minute could he get away from the thought.  Would it hurt much?  He was terribly afraid that it would hurt.  And would he be defeated and shamed?

He could not eat any supper worth speaking of.  Susan had made a big batch of his favourite monkey-faces, but he could choke only one down.  Jem ate four.  Walter wondered how he could.  How could anybody eat?  And how could they all talk gaily as they were doing?  There was mother, with her shining eyes and pink cheeks.  She didn’t know her son had to fight next day.  Would she be so gay if she knew, Walter wondered darkly.  Jem had taken Susan’s picture with his new camera and the result was passed around the table and Susan was terribly indignant over it.

“I am no beauty, Mrs. Dr. dear, and well I know it, and have always known it,” she said in an aggrieved tone, “but that I am as ugly as that picture makes me out I will never, no, never believe.”

Jem laughed over this and Anne laughed again with him.  Walter couldn’t endure it.  He got up and fled to his room.

“That child has got something on his mind, Mrs. Dr. dear,” said Susan.  “He has et next to nothing.  Do you suppose he is plotting another poem?”

Poor Walter was very far removed in spirit from the starry realms of poesy just then.  He propped his elbow on his open window-sill and leaned his head drearily on his hands.

“Come on down to the shore, Walter,” cried Jem, busting in.  “The boys are going to burn the sand-hill grass to-night.  Father says we can go.  Come on.”

At any other time Walter would have been delighted.  He gloried in the burning of the sand-hill grass.  But now he flatly refused to go, and no arguments or entreaties could move him.  Disappointed Jem, who did not care for the long dark walk to Four Winds Point alone, retreated to his museum in the garret and buried himself in a book.  He soon forgot his disappointment, revelling with the heroes of old romance, and pausing occasionally to picture himself a famous general, leading his troops to victory on some great battlefield.