now!" said Mrs. Dixon. "I wouldn't doubt that child to be wanting the
world in her pocket before it was made!"

"Dixie! Dixie! Open the window! Hurry! I want you!"

Christian's face, surmounted by a very old hunting-cap, and decorated
with a corked moustache, appeared at the window.

"The Lord save us, child! What have you done to yourself? And what are
you doing out there in the wet?" answered Mrs. Dixon, reprovingly;
"sure the cake won't be baked for ten minutes yet."

"I don't want the cake. I only want some biscuits, _please_.
Dixie, and hurry! Amazon's bolted, and Cottingham's asked _me_ to
catch her! If you _had_ a bone, Dixie, she'd simply--"

Mrs. Dixon was gone. She disapproved exceedingly of Christian's rôle
as kennel-boy, but as, since Christian's first birthday, she had never
refused her anything, she was not prepared on her tenth to break so
well-established a habit.

"I dunno in the world why Mr. Cottingham should make a young lady like
you do his business!" she said, putting the requisition bait into
Christian's eager, up-stretched hands, "and if your Mamma could see
you--"

"Oh, well done, Dixie! What a lovely bone! Oh, thank you most
awfully!" interrupted Christian, snatching at the dainties provided,
and flitting away through the grey veils of the rain, a preposterous
little figure, clad in a ragged kennel-coat, that had been long since