The girl for a moment could not remember where she was; the room, with
its dark-grey paper and stiff black-walnut furniture, was
foreign-looking, so were the coloured pictures of religious subjects on
the walls. On the chimney-piece stood two blue glass vases filled with
dried grasses, and the lace curtains flaunted their stiff cleanliness
against otherwise unshaded windows.

Where was she?

And then, as the music broke off suddenly, she remembered, and smiled in
delighted recollection of the evening before. Waking was usually such a
bore; the thought of breakfast, always a severe test to the unsociable,
was horrid to her. There would be either a solitary meal in the big dark
dining-room, or what was worse, guests to entertain (for Lady Kingsmead
never appeared until after eleven), and the disagreeable hurry and
scurry contingent on the catching of 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