The hammering was beginning again when Miss Billy spoke: "What are you making?" she asked pleasantly. John Thomas Hennesy looked up. As to turned up nose and freckles, he much resembled Marie Jean, but his mouth was firmer. He gave Miss Billy a long penetrating stare, and the colour did not begin to creep into his cheeks until after he had dropped his head. "I'm fixin' a new kennel fer my dog," he said shamefacedly. "Goodness!" thought Miss Billy, "he's older than I thought. He must be at least fifteen." Then she went on aloud, "I wonder if it is a white bulldog with a black spot on its back?" "Yes,--that's her," answered the boy, looking up with quick interest. "Then she's been calling on me a week steadily, for bones," declared Miss Billy gaily. "I'm so glad to know her." John Thomas took up his hammer again and began to search irresolutely through his nail box at his side, but Miss Billy stood her ground with her arms behind her and her chin resting on the top of the fence. "He's wishing I would go," she thought, "but I am not going. I shall stand right here until I get courage enough to ask him to come over and help me with the pansy bed. But it's awkward,--awfully awkward. I can't think of a thing to say." "I liked your dog the moment I saw her," she went on: "I owned one like her three years ago." John Thomas, having found his nail, hesitated no longer, but began to drive it into the frame with ringing strokes. Miss Billy waited until the hammering subsided. "A friend of father's gave her to me when she was a little bow-legged puppy. She was a beautiful dog, white, with nice burnt sienna spots, and a lovely disposition. I named her Serena on account of that disposition. But she had the funniest looking tail, with three queer kind of corkscrews in it." (Miss Billy illustrated with a whirl of her forefinger that was entirely lost upon John Thomas.) "But I didn't care,--I loved Serena, if her tail did go in a corkscrew. But one summer my cousin, who was studying medicine, came to visit us, and Serena's tail seemed to bother him an awful lot. He kept making remarks about it all the time, and said it had been broken and ought to come off. So at last I consented." John Thomas had picked out another nail, but now for the first time began to display interest in the story, and looked up from his work as Miss Billy went on: "We gave her chloroform: I held the sponge myself while my cousin performed the operation. It didn't hurt her at all, and she really seemed handsomer without the tail, but a sorry sequel followed. I went to Philadelphia soon after, and while I was there my uncle took me to a dog show. I never before saw so many beautiful dogs and among them was one almost exactly like my Serena, and with three twists in her tail." "'You have a dog just like mine,' I said to the man who owned her. "'Has your dog a tail like this?' he asked.