Marmaduke. A very small Marmaduke, for he was the only one left of a
pretty flock who, one after the other, had but hovered down into the
world for a year or two to spread their tiny wings and take flight
again, leaving two desolate hearts behind them. And in this same parlour
at Arbitt Lodge had _that_ little Marmaduke learned to walk, and then to
run, to gaze with admiring eyes on the treasures in the glass cupboards,
to play bo-peep behind the thick silken curtains, even in _his_ time
faded to a withered-leaf green, to poke his tiny nose into the bowl of
pot-pourri on the centre table, which made him sneeze just exactly
as--ah! but I am forgetting--never mind, I may as well finish the
sentence--just exactly as it made "us" sneeze now!

After the tap came a kind of little pattering and scratching, like baby
taps, not quite sure of their own existence; then, had Grandpapa's and
Grandmamma's ears been a very little sharper, they could not but have
heard a small duel in words.

"_You_, bruvver, my fingers' bones is tired."

"I _told_ you, sister," reproachfully, "us should always bring old
Neddy's nose downstairs with us. They never hear _us_ tapping."

Then a faint sigh or two and a redoubled assault, crowned with success.
Grandmamma, whom after all I am not sure but that I have maligned in
calling her deaf--the taps were so very faint really!--Grandmamma looks
up from her netting, and in a thin but clear voice calls out, "Come in!"


The door opens--then, after admitting the entrance of two small figures,
is carefully closed again, and the two small figures, with a military