“Yes’m—if you please,” Carolyn May confessed faintly.
“And how came you here alone?”
“If you please, Uncle Joe said I’d better prob’ly come ahead and get acquainted with you first.”
“‘First’? What do you mean, ‘first’?” asked Aunty Rose sternly.
“First—before you saw Prince,” responded the perfectly frank little girl. “Uncle Joe thought maybe you wouldn’t care for dogs.”
“Dogs!”
“No, ma’am. And, of course, where I live, Prince has to live, too. So——”
“So you brought the dog?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Of course,” said Aunty Rose composedly, “I expected you to come here. I do not know what Joseph Stagg expected. But I did not suppose you would have a dog. Where is Joseph Stagg?”