Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs | Page 4

at a house where there are quite so many dogs!
Not at a house where there is a butler ... anyway!"
Crowding and pushing and yelping and fawning around her, it was the
dogs who announced her ultimate arrival. Like a drift of snow the huge
wolf-hound whirled his white shagginess into the vestibule. Shrill as a
banging blind the impetuous coach-dog lurched his sleek weight
against the door. Sucking at a crack of light the red setter's kindled nose
glowed and snorted with dragonlike ferocity. Without knock or ring the
door-handle creaked and turned, three ecstatic shapes went hurtling
through a yellow glare into the hall beyond, and Flame found herself
staring up into the blinking, astonished eyes of the crumpled old man
with the red waistcoat.
"G--Good evening,--Butler!" she rallied.
"Good evening, Miss!" stammered the Butler.
"I've--I've come to call," confided Flame.
"To--call?" stammered the Butler.
"Yes," conceded Flame. "I--I don't happen to have an engraved card
with me." Before the continued imperturbability of the old Butler all
subterfuge seemed suddenly quite useless. "I never have had an
engraved card," she confided quite abruptly. "But you might tell Miss
Flora if you please--" ... Would nothing crack the Butler's
imperturbability?... Well maybe she could prove just a little bit
imperturbable herself! "Oh! Butlers don't 'tell' people things, do they?...
They always 'announce' things, don't they?... Well, kindly announce to
Miss Flora that the--the Minister's Daughter is--at the door!... Oh, no! It
isn't asking for a subscription or anything!" she hastened quite suddenly
to explain. "It's just a Christian call!... B--Being so nervous and lost on
the train and everything ... we thought Miss Flora might be glad to
know that there were neighbors.... We live so near and everything....

And can run like the wind! Oh, not Mother, of course!... She's a bit
stout! And Father starts all right but usually gets thinking of something
else! But I...? Kindly announce to Miss Flora," she repeated with
palpable crispness, "that the Minister's Daughter is at the door!"
Fixedly old, fixedly crumpled, fixedly imperturbable, the Butler
stepped back a single jerky pace and bowed her towards the parlor.
"Now," thrilled Flame, "the adventure really begins."
It certainly was a sad and romantic looking parlor, and strangely
furnished, Flame thought, for even "moving times." Through a maze of
bulging packing boxes and barrels she picked her way to a faded
rose-colored chair that flanked the fire-place. That the chair was
already half occupied by a pile of ancient books and four dusty garden
trowels only served to intensify the general air of gloom. Presiding over
all, two dreadful bouquets of long-dead grasses flared wanly on the
mantle-piece. And from the tattered old landscape paper on the walls
Civil War heroes stared regretfully down through pale and tarnished
frames.
"Dear me ... dear me," shivered Flame. "They're not going to Christmas
at all ... evidently! Not a sprig of holly anywhere! Not a ravel of tinsel!
Not a jingle bell!... Oh she must have lost a lot of lovers," thrilled
Flame. "I can bring her flowers, anyway! My very first Paper White
Narcissus! My--."
With a scrape of the foot the Butler made known his return.
"Miss Flora!" he announced.
With a catch of her breath Flame jumped to her feet and turned to greet
the biggest, ugliest, most brindled, most wizened Bull Dog she had ever
seen in her life.
"Miss Flora!" repeated the old Butler succinctly.
"Miss Flora?" gasped Flame. "Why.... Why, I thought Miss Flora was a

Lady! Why--"
"Miss Flora is indeed a very grand lady, Miss!" affirmed the Butler
without a flicker of expression. "Of a pedigree so famous ... so
distinguished ... so ..." Numerically on his fingers he began to count the
distinctions. "Five prizes this year! And three last! Do you mind the
chop?" he gloated. "The breadth! The depth!... Did you never hear of
alauntes?" he demanded. "Them bull-baiting dogs that was invented by
the second Duke of York or thereabouts in the year 1406?"
"Oh my Glory!" thrilled Flame. "Is Miss Flora as old as that?"
"Miss Flora," said the old Butler with some dignity, "is young--hardly
two in fact--so young that she seems to me but just weaned."
With her great eyes goggled to a particularly disconcerting sort of
scrutiny Miss Flora sprang suddenly forward to investigate the visitor.
As though by a preconcerted signal a chair crashed over in the hall and
the wolf hound and the setter and the coach dog came hurtling back in a
furiously cordial onslaught. With wags and growls and yelps of joy all
four dogs met in Flame's lap.
"They seem to like me, don't they?" triumphed Flame. Intermittently
through the melee of flapping ears,--shoving shoulders,--waving paws,
her beaming little face proved the absolute sincerity of