I bowed with deep respect and withdrew, for I heard them calling me at home.
The next day I looked for my beautiful pink-coloured lady, but I looked in vain. Instead, a dog of a bright sky-blue, with a yellow ribbon round its neck, sat in the sun on the dyer's doorstep. Yet, could I be mistaken? That nose, those ears, that feathery tail, those bright and beaming eyes!
I went across. She received me with some embarrassment, which disappeared as I talked gaily of milk and guinea pigs, and the habits of the cats'-meat man. Before we parted I said—
"You have changed your dress."
"Yes," she said, "it's so common and vulgar to wear always one colour."
"Sat in the sun on the dyer's doorstep."
"But I thought"—I hesitated—"that your mother was the Royal Crimson Dog at the Court of——"
"So she was," replied the lady promptly, "but my father was the well-known sky-blue terrier at the Crystal Palace Dog Show. I resemble both my parents."
I retired, fascinated by her high breeding and graceful explanations. Through my dreams that night wandered a long procession of blue and crimson dogs.