Winchester Garden, the young half-uncle who seemed like a whole brother to the young girls, came down the central path of the garden to join Mary and Jane. He was good to look at, lean, but not thin, muscular, with a swinging easy walk; he had a smooth-shaven, humorous face, with keen, yet kindly eyes which twinkled in a way that matched a certain laughing twist of his lips. He was tall and his colouring was harmonious, hair, eyes, and skin all of a brownish tint.
“Hallo, little nieces! Hallo, little nices!” he called, correcting himself.
“Hallo, Win, the winner!” Jane shouted back. “Methinks I hear Florimel—lifluous,” said Win.
Mary laughed; Jane did not know what the word meant.
“Nothing particularly mellifluous about Florimel’s voice just now,” she said.
Somewhere beyond the fence arose Florimel’s voice. “Come along!” it was saying sharply. “Do you think I can drag you! Big as you are? Even if I knew you wouldn’t bite! Come on!” This more encouragingly. “If you only won’t be shy,” they heard her add in a tone of exasperated patience, “I’m sure my sisters will be glad to see you, and some one will help you out, probably our guardian, Mr. Austin Moulton. He can do ’most anything of that sort.”
“Well, what on earth do you suppose the kid has in tow, now, that requires such an assorted exhortation?” murmured Win.
Florimel appeared at the wicket gate which admitted to the garden from the street at the rear of the Garden place. But above her, over the hedge, arose another head, some ten inches higher than Florimel’s dark one, the fair head of a boy about eighteen. His face was pale, his expression troubled, his eyes seemed to ask for pardon for his intrusion, but he was there. It was only when he followed Florimel through the gate, at her vehement invitation, that one saw that he limped.
Florimel was rosy from earnest and strenuous effort; her brilliant face was fairly scintillating with excitement, her dark eyes snapping. The reason for what Win had called her “assorted exhortation” was revealed by the presence of the lame boy and of a dog which she was gingerly, yet forcibly, conducting by any part available for seizure, there being no collar by which to lead her. It was a dog of varied ancestry, setter and hound predominating. On a groundwork of white a large liver-coloured spot, like a stray buckwheat cake, was displayed on one side, and a large liver-coloured spot, with a smaller one just below it, giving the effect of the print of the sole and heel of a muddy and large shoe, decorated the dog’s other side. The liver and white tail which she cheerfully waved was too broad and thick successfully to carry out its design; so was the body too unevenly developed for beauty. But the head was really beautiful, with long liver-coloured ears, soft and fine, carrying out the liver-coloured sides of the face, divided by a broad white parting from crown to tip of nose. The brown eyes looking out from this fine head were the softest, loveliest of dogs’ eyes—and there can be nothing more said in praise of eyes than this.
“It’s homeless!” Florimel announced breathlessly. “It hasn’t any home. It’s been hanging around the hotel and they won’t feed it for fear it will keep on hanging around. Amy Everett and I found them driving it off—with brooms!” Florimel’s voice conveyed that this weapon was of all the most unpardonable. “I grabbed its hair—they said ’twould bite, but it never would! And I pulled its ears—they’re as soft! And it licked my nose before I could jump. So I’m going to keep her—please! We need a dog, really. It is a peach; only a puppy, about six months old; they said so at the hotel. People had it and dropped it—didn’t want it. Isn’t it perfectly fiendish the way they do that to cats and dogs? So I want her. Don’t shake your head, Winchester Garden; I—want—this—dog!”