CHAPTER VIII. BAD NEWS. It was Christmas week, and Mrs. Langton and her daughters were sitting, late one afternoon, in the drawing-room where we saw them first. Dolly was on a low stool at her mother's feet, submitting, not too willingly, to have the bow in her hair smoothed and arranged for her. 'It _must_ be all right now, mother!' she said, breaking away rebelliously at last. 'It's worse than ever, Dolly,' said Mrs. Langton plaintively; 'it's slipped over to the left now!' 'But it doesn't matter, it never will keep straight long.' 'Well, if you _like_ to run about like a little wild child,' was the resigned answer. 'Little wild children don't wear bows in their hair; they wear--well, they don't wear anything they've got to be careful and tidy about. I think that must be rather nice,' said Dolly, turning round from where she knelt on the hearthrug. 'Wake up, Frisk, and be good-tempered directly. Mother, on Christmas Day I'm going to tie a Christmas card round Frisk's neck, and send him into papa's dressing-room to wish him a Merry Christmas, the first thing in the morning--you won't tell him before the time, will you?' 'Not if you don't wish it, darling,' said Mrs. Langton, placidly. 'I mightn't have had him to tie a card to,' said Dolly, taking the dog up and hugging him fondly, 'if that gentleman had not fetched him out of the train for me; and I never said "thank you" to him either. I forgot somehow, and when I remembered he was gone. Should you think he will come to see me, Mabel; you told him that mother would be glad to thank him some time, didn't you, on the paper you gave the guard for him?' 'Yes, Dolly,' said Mabel, turning her head a little away; 'but you see he hasn't come yet.' 'My dear,' said her mother, 'really I think he shows better taste in keeping away; there was no necessity to send him a message at all, and I hope he won't take any advantage of it. Thanking people is so tiresome and, after all, they never think you have said enough about it. It was very kind of the young man, of course, very--though I can't say I ever quite understood what it was he did--it was something in a fog, I know,' she concluded vaguely. 'We told you all about it, mother,' explained Dolly; 'I'll tell you all over again. There was a fog and our train stopped, and we all got out, and I left Frisk behind, and there he was in the carriage all alone, and then the gentleman ran back and got him out and brought him to me. And another train came up behind and stopped too.' 'Dolly tells it rather tamely,' said Mabel, her cheeks flushing again. 'At the time he ran back for the dog, we could all hear the other train rushing up in the fog, mamma, and nobody knew whether there might not be a frightful collision in another minute.' 'Then I think it was an extremely rash thing for him to do, my dear; and if I were his mother I should be very angry with him.' 'He was very good-looking, wasn't he, Mabel?' said Dolly, irrelevantly.