"Allow me to remind you, Herr von Prell," she said, "that it is only owing to our former friendship I have warned you. Having done it, we had better be strangers in future. I must go now. Good-night." Whereupon she began to run away from him. But, as she sprang along the dark woodland path without looking round, suddenly something warm, soft, and alive slipped between her feet. She cried out shrilly, and turned back to seek Prell's help; at the same moment the chain got twisted round her ankle and held her fast. The foxy little dog in his eager desire to get home had taken her flight as a signal to break loose from his master's restraining hold, and had run under her skirts. The more she pressed forward the more painfully did the chain cut into her flesh. It was all over now with her anger. Herr von Prell had to kneel down and hold the little rascal in his arms till she had released her foot from its chain trap. "Tommy, Tommy, what mischief have we done? We have hurt our mistress's august foot. That comes of straining on our chains and getting under ladies' skirts. A grave offence. Aren't you ashamed of yourself, you scoundrel?" And then he imprinted a kiss on the dog's sharp-pointed little nose. "Doesn't he ever bite you?" she asked, interested. "He has had the advantage of a rigorous military training," he replied, "and consequently he is used to kisses." She burst out into a new fit of merriment, and he held out to her the struggling woolly little animal, asking her if she would like to kiss Tommy too. Laughing, she declined; laughing, she walked on in his company. "Weak as ever," she told herself. Still in fits of silvery laughter, she came into the lighted hall, where Fraeulein von Schwertfeger met her, with large reproachful eyes. "Where have you been, child?" she asked, prepared on the spot to subject her to a calm and judicial cross-questioning. "Oh, he's such fun!" was all Lilly could gurgle forth as she buried her face, flushed from laughing, on her duenna's shoulder. "Such fun!" "You don't mean to say----?" "Yes, I do. Do you think I would leave him in the lurch, my charming little old pal?" The Schwertfeger countenance froze into rigidity. Lilly, with a whoop of joy, freed herself from the elder woman's arm, flew to her room, nestled her head in the pillows, and laughed herself to sleep. CHAPTER XVIII It was begun in laughter--and with laughter it continued. The next morning when Lilly awoke the objects round her--the lamp, the washstand, the sentimental pictures on the wall--seemed to have taken on a different aspect, and the sun shone in at the windows with redoubled brilliance. In her night clothes she stood before the glass and smiled again at the reflection she saw there; it was the face of a gamin, with eyes roguish and sparkling, and a tipped-up saucy nose.