As though to rebuke such unseemly haste, Sailor rose majestically from his favorite corner of the piazza, and, descending the steps, came slowly across the lawn, waving his plumy tail like a flag of truce and looking with dignified contempt upon such mad antics as Ned was just then giving way to, for having been confined in his stall all the morning while Denise was occupied with her lessons, and then having had insult added to injury by receiving from her only a few words when she ran out to get Tan, his outraged spirit had to find some sort of vent, and this up-end, down-end, tip-end, top-end sort of performance with which he was now favoring his audience was evidently the proper sort of demonstration under the circumstances, and for a little time it would have been hard to tell which end of him rested upon _terra firma_. As a fitting ending to his performance, he rushed around and around two or three times, evidently regarding Denise’s laughter which pealed out as wild applause, and then, coming toward her with a rush, bumped against old Tan and nearly upset him, as he pushed him aside to put _his_ saucy nose where Tan’s had been. It was all done so quickly that Denise hardly realized what had happened till she was startled by a hearty, boyish laugh from the other side of the hedge, and, turning quickly, saw a lad of about twelve looking over it and laughing as hard as he could. Giving Ned a shake by his little silky ears, Denise pushed him from her and hopped up from the bench, saying: “Isn’t he the craziest thing you ever saw? I guess you are the person I am to see and not know a bit, but to call an old friend,” and with this bewildering announcement she went over to the fence to speak to the still amused boy. Hastily reaching in the pocket of his immaculate little overcoat, the boy drew from it a small card-case, and, taking from it a card, handed it to Denise with a truly Chesterfieldian air as he raised his cap and waited for her to read the name. Although a carefully-bred child, Denise had not had much experience in conventionalities, and did not go about with a card-case in her pocket. So it never occurred to her to throw any formality into her reply, and her next words banished forever any misgivings the boy was entertaining of the outcome of this act. “Will she be stiff and prim?” had been his inward doubt while coming back to the home so long untenanted by his parents, and learning that their next-door neighbor had an only daughter blessed with more good things than usually falls to the lot of one child. He had been at school abroad, and “manners polite” had been as breakfast, dinner, and supper to him for three long years, till very little of the genuine boy appeared upon the surface, however much it seethed and bubbled beneath. True to his training, the card had been produced when occasion called for it, but the sigh of relief which came at Denise’s next words told that a mighty burden had been lifted from his boyish soul: