one.
The luminous long blue eyes in the glass looked back at her girlishly.
"Would you think we were twenty-five even?" they said. Phyllis smiled
irrepressibly at the mirrored girl.

"Yas'm," said the rich and comfortable voice of Lily-Anna, the cook,
from the dining-room door; "you sholy is pretty. Yas'm--a lady _wants_
to stay pretty when she's married. Yo' don' look much mo'n a bride,
ma'am, an' dat's a fac'. Does you want yo' dinnehs brought into de
sittin'-room regular till de gem'man gits well?"

"Yes--no--yes--for the present, any way," said Phyllis, with a mixture
of confusion and dignity. Fortunately the doorbell chose this time to
ring.

A business-like young messenger with a rocking crate wanted to speak to
the madam. The last item on Phyllis's shopping list had come.

"The wolfhound's doing fine, ma'am," the messenger answered in response
to her questions. "Like a different dog already. All he needed was
exercise and a little society. Yes'm, this pup's broken--in a manner,
that is. Your man picked you out the best-tempered little feller in the
litter. Here, Foxy--careful, lady! Hold on to his leash!"

There was the passage of the check, a few directions about
dog-biscuits, and then the messenger from the kennels drove back to the
station, the crate, which had been emptied of a wriggling six-months
black bull-dog, on the seat beside him.

XII

Allan, lying at the window of the sunny bedroom, and wondering if they
had been having springs like this all the time he had lived in the city,
heard a scuffle outside the door. His wife's voice inquired breathlessly
of Wallis, "Can Mr. Allan--see me?... Oh, gracious--_don't_, Foxy, you
little black gargoyle! Open the door, or--shut it--quick, Wallis!"

But the door, owing to circumstances over which nobody but the black dog
had any control, flew violently open here, and Allan had a flying vision
of his wife, flushed, laughing, and badly mussed, being railroaded
across the room by a prancingly exuberant French bull at the end of a
leash.

"He's--he's a cheerful dog," panted Phyllis, trying to bring Foxy to
anchor near Allan, "and I don't think he knows how to keep still long
enough to pose across your feet--he wouldn't become them anyhow--he's a
real man-dog, Allan, not an interior decoration.... Oh, Wallis, he has
Mr. Allan's slipper! Foxy, you little fraud! Did him want a drink,
angel-puppy?"

"Did you get him for me, Phyllis?" asked Allan when th