She was a distinctly droll looking child at the age of seven, our
little Felicia Day! With straight black hair brushed smoothly back and
bound with a "circle comb," with short-waisted dresses that left her
neck and arms bare. Her slender feet were encased in short white socks
and low black slippers. And at her dear little feet was usually--
Babiche.

Babiche was so old that she whined at the evening chill; she
perpetually teased to be taken back to her comfortable cushion at the
foot of her mistress's bed. She was really very amusing when she sat
up on her haunches and begged to be carried. For she was so fat that
she hated to walk and she was a very spoiled doggy, that wee spaniel!
A sort of a dowager queen of a doggy, a nice little old grandma lady
of a dog.

The gentle yap-yap-yapping that could always be heard beyond the rear
wall was from the throats of some score or more of her expensive
great-great-great offspring who lived in the stable in tiny stalls
with their pedigree cards tacked neatly under their elaborate kennel
names.

It was a cross to Felice that she was not allowed to go through the
small arched doorway at the back of the garden that led to the stable
that opened on the narrow cobblestone "Tradespersons' Street." The
Major didn't approve of the manners of Zeb Smathers the kennel man, or
Zeb's wife Marthy, though he knew there wasn't a pair with their
patience and skill to be found for miles around. All the same Felice
adored the stable yard and would have dearly loved to climb the narrow
stairs up to the low-ceilinged rooms above the stables where Marthy