er
starts all right but usually gets thinking of something else! But
I...? Kindly announce to Miss Flora," she repeated with palpable
crispness, "that the Minister's Daughter is at the door!"

Fixedly old, fixedly crumpled, fixedly imperturbable, the Butler
stepped back a single jerky pace and bowed her towards the parlor.

"Now," thrilled Flame, "the adventure really begins."

It certainly was a sad and romantic looking parlor, and strangely
furnished, Flame thought, for even "moving times." Through a maze of
bulging packing boxes and barrels she picked her way to a faded
rose-colored chair that flanked the fire-place. That the chair was
already half occupied by a pile of ancient books and four dusty garden
trowels only served to intensify the general air of gloom. Presiding
over all, two dreadful bouquets of long-dead grasses flared wanly on
the mantle-piece. And from the tattered old landscape paper on the
walls Civil War heroes stared regretfully down through pale and
tarnished frames.

"Dear me ... dear me," shivered Flame. "They're not going to Christmas
at all ... evidently! Not a sprig of holly anywhere! Not a ravel of
tinsel! Not a jingle bell!... Oh she must have lost a lot of lovers,"
thrilled Flame. "I can bring her flowers, anyway! My very first Paper
White Narcissus! My--."

With a scrape of the foot the Butler made known his return.

"Miss Flora!" he announced.

With a catch of her breath Flame jumped to her feet and turned to
greet the biggest, ugliest, most brindled, most wizened Bull Dog she
had ever seen in her life.

"_Miss Flora!_" repeated the old Butler succinctly.

"Miss Flora?" gasped Flame. "Why.... Why, I thought Miss Flora was a
Lady! Why--"

"Miss Flora is indeed a very grand lady, Miss!" affirmed the Butler
without a flicker of expression. "Of a pedigree so famous ... so
distinguished ... so ..." Numerically on his fingers he began to count
the distinctions. "Five prizes this year! And three last! Do you mind
the chop?" he gloated. "The breadth! The depth!... Did you never hear
of alauntes?" he demanded. "Them bull-baiting dogs that was invented
by the second Duke of York or thereabouts in the year 1406?"

"Oh my Glory!" thrilled Flame. "Is Miss Flora as old as _that_?"

"Miss Flora," said the old Butler with some dignity, "is young--hardly
two in fact--so young that she seems to me but just weaned."

With her great eyes goggled to a particularly disconcerting sort of
scrut