It is not bread and bones, however, and Flaps was very hungry—so hungry that he could not resist the temptation to make his way towards the farmhouse, on the chance of picking up some scraps outside. And that was how it came about, that when the farmer's little daughter Daisy, with a face like the rosy side of a white-heart cherry set deep in a lilac print hood, came back from going with the dairy lass to fetch up the cows, she found Flaps snuffing at the back door, and she put her arms round his neck (they reached right round with a little squeezing) and said:
"Oh, I never knew you'd be here so early! You nice thing!"
And Flaps' nose went right into the print hood, and he put out his tongue and licked Daisy's face from the point of her chin up her right cheek to her forehead, and then from her forehead down her left cheek back to her chin, and he found that she was a very nice thing too.
But the dairymaid screamed, "Good gracious! where did that nasty strange dog come from? Leave him alone, Miss Daisy, or he'll bite your nose off."
"He won't!" said Daisy indignantly. "He's the dog Daddy promised me;" and the farmer coming out at that minute, she ran up to him crying, "Daddy! Isn't this my dog?"
"Bless the child, no!" said the farmer; "it's a nice little pup I'm going to give thee. Where did that dirty old brute come from?"
"He would wash," said little Daisy, holding very fast to Flaps' coat.
"Fine washing too!" said the dairymaid, "And his hair's all lugs."
"I could comb them," said Daisy.