f different trains. But here she
seemed to have escaped from what Tommy called Morning Horrors, and it
was delightful to lie in her bed and wonder what, in this extraordinary
house, was likely to happen next.

What did happen was, of course, quite unexpected; the door slowly opened
and a small yellow dog appeared, a note tied to his collar.

A mongrel person, this dog, with suggestions of various races in him;
his tail had intended to be long, but the hand of heredity had evidently
shortened it, and the ears, long enough to lop, pricked slightly as his
bright eyes smiled up at the girl, who laughed aloud as she took the
note he had brought.

"Oh, you dear little monster!" she said to him. "I never saw anything so
yellow as you in my life--except Lady Minturn's wig. I believe you're
dyed!"

The note, written in a peculiarly dashing hand on thick mauve paper, was
short:

"Ma Fille," it ran, "good morning to you--the first of many
happy ones with us. Yellow Dog Papillon brings this to you. He is an
angel dog, and loves you already, as does your Victor Joyselle,

"Beau-Papa."

Yellow Dog Papillon, having come to stay, was sitting up, as if he
never under any circumstances passed his time in another way. His rough,
pumpkin-coloured front feet hung genteelly limp, and his tail slowly
described a half circle on the highly polished floor.

Brigit laughed again, and patted his head. "Does he expect an answer?"
she asked seriously; but before the dog could tell her what he thought
the door opened, and Madame Joyselle entered, bearing a small lacquered
tray, on which stood a tiny coffee-pot, cup and saucer, plate and
cream-jug, of gleaming white porcelain, the edges of which glittered in
a narrow gold line, and a tall glass vase containing a very large and
faultless gardenia.

"I have brought you your coffee, Lady Brigit," said the little woman,
showing her beautiful teeth in a cheery smile, "and 'ard-boiled eggs.
Theo told me you like them 'ard-boiled. The gardenia is from my
'usband."

Her English was very bad, and the unusual exertion of speaking in the
tongue which to her, in spite of twenty-five years' residence in the
country of its birth, still remained "foreign," brought a pretty flush
to her brown cheeks. "You sleep--well?"

As she ate her breakfast Lady Brigit studied this simple woman who was
to be her mother-in-law. Madame Joyselle was, socially speaki