hat fallen to
the ground, she looked like some sea-woman emerging from an earth-hued
pool to comb her hair against a dappled rock. The ground was sparsely
covered with gray-blue bushes whose fronds at a little distance blended
into a haze till they seemed like billows of smoke suddenly solidified,
and here and there a darting red or yellow flower gave the illusion of
an under-tongue of flame. Her eyes, passionately eager, peered about
her, drinking in each note of color as her quick ear caught each
twig-fall, each sound of bird and insect.

She drew back against the tree and caught her breath as a bulldog
frisked over a mossy boulder just in front of her.

A moment more and she had thrown herself on her knees with both arms
outstretched. "Oh, you splendid creature!" she cried, "you big, lovely
white darling!"

The dog seemed in no way averse to this sensational proceeding. He
responded instantly not merely with tail-wagging; but with ecstatic
grunts and growls. "Where did you come from?" she questioned, as his
pink tongue struggled desperately to find a cheek through the whorl of
coppery hair. "Why, you must be the one I was told not to be afraid of."

She petted and fondled the smooth intelligent muzzle. "As if any one
could be afraid of _you_! We'll set your master right on that point."
Smiling to herself, she pulled one of the roses from her belt, and
twisting a wisp of long grass, wound it round and round the dog's neck
and thrust the ragged rose-stem firmly through it. "Now," she said, and
pushed him gently from her, "go back, sir!"

He whined and licked her hand, but when she repeated the command, he
turned obediently and left her. A little way from her he halted, with a
sudden perception of mysterious punishment, shrugged, sat down, and
tried to reach the irksome grass-wisp with his teeth. This failing, he
rolled laboriously in the dirt.

Then he rose, cast a reproachful glance behind him, and trotted off.

CHAPTER VIII

MAD ANTHONY

Beyond the selvage of the sleepy leaf-sheltered village a cherry
bordered lane met the Red Road. On its one side was a clovered pasture
and beyond this an orchard, bounded by a tall hedge of close-clipped box
which separated it from a broad yard where the gray-weathered roof of
Rosewood showed above a group of tulip and catalpa trees. Viewed nearer,
the low stone house, with its huge overhanging eaves, would have looked
like a small boy with his father's hat on but