a preference for one kitten more than another, that kitten was,
indisputably, Christian.

"The little devil knows the hounds better than I do!" he would say to
a brother M.F.H. at the Puppy Show. "Her mother can't keep her out of
the kennels. And the hounds are mad about her. I believe she could
take 'em walking-out single-handed!"

To which the brother M.F.H. would probably respond with perfidious
warmth: "By Jove!" while, addressing that inner confidant, who always
receives the raciest share of any conversation, he would say that
_he'd_ be jiggered before he'd let any of _his_ children
mess the hounds about with petting and nonsense.

In justice to Lady Isabel, it should be said that she shared the
visiting M.F.H.'s view of the position, though regarding it from a
different angle.

"Christian, my dearest child," she said, on the day following the
Puppy Show that had coincided with Christian's eighth birthday, when,
after a long search, she had discovered her youngest daughter, seated,
tailor-wise, in one of the kennels, the centre of a mat of hounds.
"This is not a _not_ a place for you! You don't know _what_
you may not bring back with you--"

"If you mean fleas, Mother," replied Christian, firmly, "the hounds
have none, except what _I_ bring them from Yummie." (Yummie was
Lady Isabel's dog, a sickly and much despised spaniel). "The Hounds!"
Christian laughed a little; the laugh that is the flower of the root
of scorn. Then her eyes softened and glowed. "Darlings!" she murmured,