"Poor little Minnie," said Miss Fielding, "she's got yellow eyes and a thin coat, but I love her just as much!" Taking the forepaws she held her own face tantalizingly near the dog's tongue. "Just as much, I do. Now go over to Mr. Castle, Miss!"
Last of all came Hiawatha, a frenzied, wriggling, capering puppy, sable-and-white like his mother, yelping, crouching, bounding, hysterical with joy. Miss Fielding and I fell to laughing at his antics, but Hiawatha was too young to care. He was up on top of my bed in half a minute, and stifling me with his eagerness, lapping my face and hands, growling, snarling, biting, scratching all at once. When this frisky, capering bunch of enthusiasm had departed, quite out of his head with the excitement of the visit, Miss Fielding talked dog for ten minutes. She had not forgotten, however, to compliment her pets with a lump of sugar apiece, filched from my tray and dropped from the window with strict precedence.
"Oh," I said, looking at her with admiration, "I do think your own name is the best! It's so like you."
"What d'you mean?" she asked, coming up to me.
"Why—Joy," I replied.
"Of course it is! Isn't it fun to have a name like that? One has quite to live up to it, though. It inspires me, sometimes, when I'm blue."
"Yes; it has distinction. I don't see why you ever should prefer Edna."
"Oh, Edna—" she said seriously. She waited a moment, to shake from her skirt the sand the dogs' paws had left. "Well, I do like Edna, sometimes. It depends upon my mood, I suppose. You know I told you I had moods. Don't try to reconcile me, I know I'm inconsistent. But I'm a woman," she added, looking up more brightly, "and I suppose I have that right."
"I haven't decided whether you're a woman or not," I returned. "Sometimes I have thought you were a princess in disguise."
"Oh, that's nice of you! But why?"