for a year or two, and in which both Sir Wilfred and his son had taken
great interest, was just drawing to a conclusion, and he was obliged
to go up to town for a few hours almost daily, and but for Erle's
society, Fay would have been sadly moped; but with his usual
good-humor, Erle gave up his out-of-door pursuits to devote himself to
her amusement.

He was always contriving odd surprises for her; the mystified servants
often heard Fay's merry laugh ringing like a peal of silvery bells,
and thought that there could be very little the matter with their
young mistress; sometimes these sounds were supplemented by others
that were still more extraordinary.

One day Erle brought up the stable puppies--three black-faced,
snub-nosed, roundabout creatures in which Fay had taken a kindly
interest since the hour of their birth--and to her intense delight
deposited them on her lap, where they tumbled and rolled over each
other with their paws in the air, protesting in puppy fashion against
this invasion of their liberties.

Another time there was an extraordinary clucking to be heard outside
the door, and the next moment Erle entered with a hen under each arm,
and very red in the face from suppressed laughter.

"I thought you would be pining after your favorites, Speckles and
Tufty," he observed, with a chuckle; "so, as you could not visit the
poultry-yard, my Fairy Queen, I have brought Dame Partlet and her
sister to visit you," and he deposited the much-injured fowls on the
rug.

It was unfortunate that Sir Hugh should have come in that moment; his
disgusted look as he opened the door nearly sent Fay into hysterics;
Speckles was clucking wildly under the sofa--Tufty taking excited
flights across the room.

"How can you be so ridiculous," observed Sir Hugh, with a frown; "Fay,
do you think Dr. Martin would approve of all this excitement;" but
even he was obliged to check a smile at Erle's agonizing attempts to
catch Speckles.

Fay began to wonder what he would do next; Erle gravely assured her
that if he could have induced Bonnie Bess to walk upstairs, which she
would not do under any pretense, preferring to waltz on her hind-legs
in the hall, he would have regaled her with a sight of her favorite;
but after the baby from the lodge, a half-frozen hedgehog, some white
rats kept by the stable-boy, and old Tom, the veteran cat with half a
tail, had all been decoyed into the boudoir, Erle found himself at the
end of his re