“What ailed it?”
“Well, miss, the docther he said ’twas just laziness and over-feedin’—only he put it into grand words, you know—and the Madame didn’t like it; but it’s dead an’ gone he is, annyhow, the purty darlint!”
“Is it Miss Kemper?” asked Mary, appearing at the head of the stairs. “Please walk right up, miss.”
Floy was ushered at once into the Madame’s dressing-room, where she found that lady weeping bitterly over her dead favorite as it lay stiff and stark in her lap.
“He’s gone, Miss Kemper!” she sobbed, looking up piteously into Floy’s face, with the tears running fast down her own; “he’s gone, my pretty darling—the only thing I had left to love, and the only one that had any love for poor me!”
The young girl scarcely knew what consolation to offer; she could only express her sympathy and hope that he might be replaced by another as pretty and playful.
“Never, never!” exclaimed the Madame indignantly; “no other ever could or ever shall fill his place. And he shall have a splendid funeral,” she went on, with a fresh burst of grief, “the finest casket money can buy, and a white satin shroud; a monument over his dear little grave too; and I’ll put on mourning as I would for a child.”
For a moment Floy was silent with surprise; then recovering herself,
“This is handsomer than satin, Madame,” she said, gently touching the silky floss of the dog’s own natural coat; “and what a pity to bury it: would it not be better to have it stuffed? for then you need not lose your pet entirely, but can keep him here, caress him, and deck him with ribbons as you have been used to doing.”
“Bless you for the suggestion!” cried the mourner, drying her tears. “So I can; and it will be better than hiding him away out of my sight.