"Well, then, about six you won't have any dog, and poor little Gammire'll get run over by an automobile some time this very evening!" Florence's voice became anguished in the stress of her appeal. "Aunt Julia, won't you give me this dog?"
Julia shook her head.
"Won't you, please?"
"No, dear."
"Aunt Julia, if it was Noble Dill gave you this dog----"
"Florence!" her aunt exclaimed. "What in the world makes you imagine such absurd things? Poor Mr. Dill!"
"Well, if it was, I think you ought to give Gammire to me because I like Noble Dill, and I----"
But here her aunt laughed again and looked at her with some curiosity. "You still do?" she asked. "What for?"
"Well," said Florence, swallowing, "he may be rather smallish for a man, but he's very uncouth and distingrished-looking, and I think he doesn't get to enjoy himself much. Grandpa talks about him so torrably and--and----" Here, such was the unexpected depth of her feeling that she choked, whereupon her aunt, overcome with laughter, but nevertheless somewhat touched, sprang up and threw two pretty arms about her charmingly.
"You funny Florence!" she cried.
"Then will you give me Gammire?" Florence asked instantly.
"No. We'll bring him in the house now, and you can stay for lunch."
Florence was imperfectly consoled, but she had a thought that brightened her a little.
"Well, there'll be an awful time when grandpa comes home this afternoon--but it certainly will be inter'sting!"
She proved a true prophet, at least to the extent that when Mr. Atwater opened his front gate that afternoon he was already in the presence of a deeply interested audience whose observation was unknown to him. Through the interstices of the lace curtains at an open window, the gaze of Julia and Florence was concentrated upon him in a manner that might have disquieted even so opinionated and peculiar a man as Mr. Atwater, had he been aware of it; and Herbert likewise watched him fixedly from an unseen outpost. Herbert had shown some recklessness, declaring loudly that he intended to lounge in full view; but when the well-known form of the ancestor was actually identified, coming up the street out of the distance, the descendant changed his mind. The good green earth ceased to seem secure; and Herbert climbed a tree. He surrounded himself with the deepest foliage; and beneath him some outlying foothills of Kitty Silver were visible, where she endeavoured to lurk in the concealment of a lilac bush.