She stepped hastily backward, but not before the front of her neat, pink morning gown had been hopelessly soiled by the dog’s muddy feet.
“You bad, bad dog,” she scolded, energetically, emphasizing her words by a lifted forefinger.
The little dog barked cheerfully and circled twice around her. He was so frankly, so joyously irrepressible, that Miss Clementina did not know whether to feel amused or vexed.
“Oh, well,” she compromised, “I dare say you mean well. And we can fill up the hole you’ve dug, but I do hope you won’t do it again.”
She looked him over critically.
“You’re thin,” she decided, mentally; “shockingly thin. I’m afraid your master doesn’t feed you enough. He probably has an absurd notion that a dog shouldn’t be fed but once a day. I’ve heard of such things, and I think it’s positively inhuman.”
Miss Clementina glanced furtively toward the house next door. No one was in sight. She bent over the wriggling brown dog.
“You poor thing,” she whispered, “come around to the kitchen. For once in your life you shall have all you can eat.”
It was a rash promise, and the keeping of it involved the chops for luncheon and all the milk in the house.
“He’s rather a nice dog, don’t you think?” Miss Clementina said to the maid, as she watched him eat. “But he has a dreadful appetite. I think we’d best tell the butcher’s boy to bring some dog’s meat; chops are so expensive.”