"They're only garnets," he stilled her protest of extravagance. "But they are the color of rubies; and the promise of them. Don't—please don't! Come, what have you got for me? Give it up."
The diversion succeeded. Laughing before her eyes were dry, she answered:
"He is in the wood-box. I had to keep him in the house where it was warm, and I was so afraid you would hear him and spoil the surprise. But he was as good as possible; he never said one word. Open the lid, dear."
"He?" echoed her husband. "Him?"
The wood-box yielded him; a small, jovial, bandy-legged puppy.
"He is almost a Boston bull," Elsie explained conscientiously. "If he had been quite one, I couldn't have afforded to buy him. But he is a love. Anthony, he is the watch-dog, you know."
Finding both faces within reach, as he hung over Anthony's arm, the puppy licked them with fond impartiality.
CHAPTER X
Mrs. Masterson Takes Tea
It was the day after Christmas that Adriance was sent over to New York with his motor-truck, for the first time since he had become that massive vehicle's pilot. His destination was in Brooklyn, so that he had the entire city to cross, and lights were commencing to twinkle here and there through the gray of the short winter afternoon when he turned homeward.