“Ha, Wyn, so you’ve got the puppy? Miss Geraldine will be out directly. What a jolly little chap he is! Put him down on my knee. No—no, sir, you don’t eat the newspaper! Anything else new, Wyn?”
“Yes, sir, the wild duck’s eggs are hatched, and there are seven of them on the lower pond. Should you like to go and see them, sir?”
“Yes, I should. Get the pony round in half an hour. It’s a lovely day.”
As he spoke a tall girl of about fourteen, in a blue linen frock made sailor fashion and a sailor hat stuck on the back of her long dark hair, came running up the broad walk in the middle of the garden, sprang up the shallow steps that led to the terrace with one bound, and pounced on the puppy.
“Oh! what a little darling! What a perfect pet! Oh, how jolly of you to get him for me, Edgar! I’ll teach him to walk on his hind legs and to die—and to bark when I ask him if he loves me—”
“Have you got Miss Hardman’s leave to keep him?” said her brother.
“No, not yet. I thought I’d put him in the cupboard in my room, and introduce him gradually.”
“He’ll howl continually, Miss Geraldine, if you shut him up,” said Wyn.
“Nonsense,” said Edgar; “go and ask her if you may have him as a present from me.”
“Oh, must I? It would be such fun to have him in a secret chamber, and visit him at night and save the schoolroom tea for him as if he was a Jacobite,” said Geraldine.