At first Lloyd was disposed to find fault
with the quaint, old-fashioned hotel which Cousin Carl had chosen as their
meeting-place. It had no conveniences like the modern ones to which she
had been accustomed. There was not even an elevator in it. She looked in
dismay at the steep, spiral stairway, winding around and around in the end
of the hall, like the steps in the tower of a lighthouse. On a side table
in the hall, several long rows of candles, with snuffers, suggested the
kind of light they would have in their bedrooms.

But everything was spotlessly clean, and the landlady and her daughter
came out to meet them with an air of giving them a welcome home, which
extended even to the dog. After their hospitable reception of Hero, Lloyd
had no more fault to find. She knew that at no modern hotel would he have
been treated so considerately and given the liberty of the house. Since he
was not banished to the courtyard or turned over to a porter's care, she
was willing to climb a dozen spiral stairways, or grope her way through
the semi-darkness of a candle-lighted bedroom every night while they were
in France, for the sake of having Hero free to come and go as he pleased.

"Come on!" she cried, gaily, to her mother, as a porter with a trunk on
his shoulder led the way up the spiral stairs. "It makes me think of the
old song you used to sing me about the spidah and the fly, 'The way into
my pahlah is up a winding stair.' Nobody but a circus acrobat could run up
the whole flight without getting dizzy. It's a good thing we are only
goin' to the next floah."

She ran around several circles of steps, and then paused to look back at
her mother, who was waiting for Mr. Sherman's helping arm. "The elephant
now goes round and round when the band begins to play," quoted Lloyd,
looking down on them, her face dimpling with laughter.

"Look out!" piped a shrill voice far above her. "I'm coming!" Lloyd gave a
hasty glance upward to the top floor, and drew back against the wall. For
down the banister, with the speed of a runaway engine, came sliding a
small bare-legged boy. Around and around the dizzy spiral he went, hugging
the railing closely, and bringing up with a tremendous bump against the
newel post at the bottom.

"Hullo!" he said, coolly, looking up at the Little Colonel.

"It's _Henny!_" she exclaimed, in amazement. "Henderson Sattawhite! Of all
people! How did you get heah?"

But the boy had no time to waste in talkin