s, but she refrained.
This little daughter of hers was just as much a lover of the little
brethren as she was. Stella simply could not endure to see anything
killed, which was a reason against her going out with the guns. Once
or twice when she had seen anything shot, although she had not screamed
like Eileen, she had turned pale, while her dark eyes had dilated as
though with fear. Lady O'Gara, noticing how close and silky the gold
nut-brown hair grew, rather like feathers than hair, had said to
herself that Stella had been a rabbit or a squirrel or perhaps a wild
bird in one of her incarnations.

They went off after lunch to see Mrs. Wade, the waddling puppy
following them, now and again tumbling over his paws. They went out by
Susan's gate, where Lady O'Gara stopped to admire the garden that was
growing up about the lodge.

"You have transfigured it, Susan," she said. "It used to be so damp
here with the old ragged laurels. They are well away. But I would not
have thought there was such good earth under them; the ground always
seemed caked so hard."

"So it were, my lady," said Susan, colouring prettily. "It were Mr.
Kenny. He has worked so 'ard. Him an' Georgie've been puttin' in
bulbs no end these last few days, when he can spare an half-hour from
his horses. It's downright pleasant to watch them do it, knowin' that
the dead-lookin' things come forth in glory soon as ever this wet
Winter's past."

Susan had to bring out her Michael to be presented to the puppy, who
had no name as yet, but Michael only growled and disappeared into the
lodge as soon as he was released, like an arrow from the bow.
Jealousy, Susan pronounced it, and suggested that the puppy should be
called Pansy.

"I fancied callin' Michael Pansy," she said. "But Mr. Kenny, he fair
talked me out of it. His eyes do favour the brown pansies that growed
in my old granny's garden in the Cotswolds."

A thousand, thousand pities, Lady O'Gara thought, as they went down the
hill towards the river, that Patsy Kenny, that confirmed bachelor,
should apparently have found his ideal in an unhappily married woman.

Stella was carrying the puppy, so that he should not arrive muddy at
his new mistress's house. She had twined a ridiculous blue ribbon in
his russet curls, which he tried to work off whenever he got a chance,
desisting only to lick vigorously at her hand.

"He knew me when he was a blind puppy," Stella explained. "I had them
all