"May I come in?" he demanded of Beulah, "or will I break up your party?"
"Oh, Dr. Brooks, as if you could. We are so glad to have you."
"I had a sick call, and we are half frozen, Toby and I, and we saw the lights——"
Now the best place for a half-frozen man is by the fire, and the best place for an anxious and shivering dog is in a warm chimney corner, so in a moment the young dog Toby was where he could thaw out in a luxurious content, and Richard was on the settle beside Anne, and was saying, "Isn't this great? Do you think I ought to stay? I'm not really invited, you know."
"There's never any formality. Everybody just comes."
"I like your frock," he said suddenly. "You remind me of a little porcelain figure I saw in a Fifth Avenue window not long ago."
"Tell me about it," she said with eagerness.
"About what?"
"New York and the shops. Oh, I saw them once. They were like—Heaven."
She laughed up at him as she said it, and he laughed back.