hrough_ the Lay Reader's face,
to the face of the Master of the House, Flame's glance went homing
with an unaccountable impulse.

With one elbow leaning casually on the mantle-piece, his narrowed eyes
faintly inscrutable, faintly smiling, it seemed suddenly to the young
Master of the House that he had been waiting all his discouraged years
for just that glance. His heart gave the queerest jump.

Flame's face turned suddenly very pink.

Like a person in a dream, she turned back to her Mother. There was a
smile on her face, but even the smile was the smile of a dreaming
person.

"No--Mother," she said, "I haven't seen Bertrand ... to-day."

"Why, you're looking right at him now!" protested her exasperated
Mother.

With a gentle murmur of dissent, Flame's Father stepped forward and
laid his arm across the young girl's shoulder. "She--she may be
looking at him," he said. "But I'm almost perfectly sure that she
doesn't ... see him."

"Why, whatever in the world do you mean?" demanded his wife. "Whatever
in the world does anybody mean? If there was only another woman here!
A mature ... sane woman! A----" With a flare of accusation she turned
from Flame to the Master of the House. "This Miss Flora that my
daughter spoke of,--where is she? I insist on seeing her! Please
summon her instantly!"

Crossing genially to the table the Master of the House reached down
and dragged out the Bull Dog by the brindled scuff of her neck. The
scratch on her nose was still bleeding slightly. And one eye was
closed.

"This is--Miss Flora!" he said.

Indignantly Flame's Mother glanced at the dog, and then from her
daughter's face to the face of the young man again.

"And you call _that_--a lady?" she demanded.

"N--not technically," admitted the young man.

For an instant a perfectly tense silence reigned. Then from under a
shadowy basket the Cat crept out, shining, sinuous, with extended
paw, and began to pat a sprig of holly cautiously along the floor.

Yielding to the reaction Flame bent down suddenly and hugging the Wolf
Hound's head to her breast buried her face in the soft, sweet
shagginess.

"Not sanitary, Mother?" she protested. "Why, they're as sanitary
as--as violets!"

As though dreaming he were late to church and had forgotten his
vestments, Flame's Father reached out nervously and draped a great
string of ground-pine stole-like about his neck.

"We all," broke in the Master of the House quite irrelevantly, "se