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As expeditiously as possible she picked herself up and bolted for the house with two furry shapes leaping largely on either side of her and one cold nose sniffing interrogatively at her heels. Her heart was very light,–her pulses jumping with excitement,–an occasional furry head doming into the palm of her hand warmed the whole bleak night with its sense of mute companionship. But the back of her heels felt certainly very queer. Even the warm yellow lights of the Rattle-Pane House did not altogether dispel her uneasiness.

“Maybe I’d better not plan to make my call so–so very informal,” she decided suddenly. “Not 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.