and a scurrying of furious claws across the oil-cloth, announced that
Tommie had invaded the house. As the servant appeared, introducing Lady
Lydiard, the dog ran in. He made one frantic leap at Isabel, which would
certainly have knocked her down but for the chair that happened to be
standing behind her. Received on her lap, the faithful creature half
smothered her with his caresses. He barked, he shrieked, in his joy at
seeing her again. He jumped off her lap and tore round and round the
room at the top of his speed; and every time he passed Miss Pink he
showed the whole range of his teeth and snarled ferociously at her
ankles. Having at last exhausted his superfluous energy, he leaped back
again on Isabel's lap, with his tongue quivering in his open mouth--his
tail wagging softly, and his eye on Miss Pink, inquiring how she liked a
dog in her drawing-room!

"I hope my dog has not disturbed you, ma'am?" said Lady Lydiard,
advancing from the mat at the doorway, on which she had patiently waited
until the raptures of Tommie subsided into repose.

Miss Pink, trembling between terror and indignation, acknowledged Lady
Lydiard's polite inquiry by a ceremonious bow, and an answer which
administered by implication a dignified reproof. "Your Ladyship's dog
does not appear to be a very well-trained animal," the ex-schoolmistress
remarked.

"Well trained?" Lady Lydiard repeated, as if the expression was
perfectly unintelligible to her. "I don't think you have had much
experience of dogs, ma'am." She turned to Isabel, and embraced her
tenderly. "Give me a kiss, my dear--you don't know how wretched I have
been since you left me." She looked back again at Miss Pink. "You are
not, perhaps, aware, ma'am, that my dog is devotedly attached to your