thenticity there
are of course parents in the story. And one or two other oldish
persons. But they all go away just as early in the narrative as I can
manage it.--Are obliged to go away!

Yet lest you find in this general combination of circumstances some
sinister threat of audacity, let me conventionalize the story at once
by opening it at that most conventional of all conventional
Christmas-story hours,--the Twilight of Christmas Eve.

Nuff said?--Christmas Eve, you remember? Twilight? Awfully cold
weather? And somebody very young?

Now for the story itself!

After five blustering, wintry weeks of village speculation and gossip
there was of course considerable satisfaction in being the first to
solve the mysterious holiday tenancy of the Rattle-Pane House.

Breathless with excitement Flame Nourice telephoned the news from the
village post-office. From a pedestal of boxes fairly bulging with
red-wheeled go-carts, one keen young elbow rammed for balance into a
gay glassy shelf of stick-candy, green tissue garlands tickling
across her cheek, she sped the message to her mother.

"O Mother-Funny!" triumphed Flame. "I've found out who's Christmasing
at the Rattle-Pane House!--It's a red-haired setter dog with one black
ear! And he's sitting at the front gate this moment! Superintending
the unpacking of the furniture van! And I've named him Lopsy!"

"Why, Flame; how--absurd!" gasped her mother. In consideration of the
fact that Flame's mother had run all the way from the icy-footed
chicken yard to answer the telephone it shows distinctly what stuff
she was made of that she gasped nothing else.

And that Flame herself re-telephoned within the half hour to
acknowledge her absurdity shows equally distinctly what stuff _she_
was made of! It was from the summit of a crate of holly-wreaths that
she telephoned this time.

"Oh Mother-Funny," apologized Flame, "you were perfectly right. No lone
dog in the world could possibly manage a great spooky place like the
Rattle-Pane House. There are two other dogs with him! A great long, narrow
sofa-shaped dog upholstered in lemon and white,--something terribly
ferocious like 'Russian Wolf Hound' I think he is! But I've named him
Beautiful-Lovely! And there's the neatest looking paper-white coach dog
just perfectly ruined with ink-spots! Blunder-Blot, I think, will make a
good name for him! And--"

"Oh--Fl--ame!" panted her Mother. "Dogs--do--not--take houses!" It
was not from th