etting your own way with my
shoes and coat. But I want you to tell Faith that I stuck it out on
the collar and that I only took it off when I went to bed!"

He was all right the next day, so we were spared the grief of being
obliged to bury him in that collar.

So it came to be the last day of the Lombards' stay.

We had all grown exceedingly fond of the dear English people who had
come so sweetly into the midst of an American home and adapted
themselves to our way of living with such easy grace. No one would
have believed, to see Lady Mary in her simple garden hat and cotton
gown, that she was a court beauty, over whose hand royalty had often
bent in gracious admiration. But it was true.

Nor was she deficient in a sense of humour, for she openly doted on
Jimmie, and listened intently for his jokes, with the laudable
intention of seeing them before they were explained to her, if she
could.

His absurd misadventures, however, came well within her ken, and this
last one so tickled her fancy that--I blush to say it, but it is
true--our imported Guernsey cow is responsible for Jimmie's invitation
to Combe Abbey to visit the Duchess of Strowther, when Lady Mary goes
home to her mother next May.

This is how it happened.

We were all out on the tennis-court one afternoon, when our attention
was attracted by the strange antics of the Guernsey. She was generally
quite shy and would allow no one to whom she was not accustomed to come
near her. But on this occasion she lurched up near where we were
standing, and crossed her forefeet and leered at us in such a way that
we women instinctively moved backward and put the men between us and
her.

We all stared at her, and she stared back and switched her long tail
and hung her tongue out and rolled from side to side, until Jimmie said:

"I'm blessed if the old girl doesn't look drunk!"

Just then old Amos ambled up, his fat sides shaking.

"Dat's jest what!" he exclaimed. "You sho'ly am a jedge ob jags,
Mistah Jimmie, tah be able tah tell 'em in man er beas'! Dat cow's
drunk. Dat's what she is. Jest plain drunk an' disorderly. She broke
her rope dis mornin' en got at de apples en filled hersif full ob dem.
And apples always mek a cow drunk!"

"I never heard of such a thing," said Captain Featherstone.

Amos scratched his head.

"Well, Mars Captain, I reckon dere's a heap o' tings about a farm dat
army ossifers never hearn tell of--meaning no onrespect to d