“Oh, not one like this. It was a thin old tabby.” And under the influence of the soft baby thing on her bosom and the kind eyes of her young hostess, the shyness melted from her, and she told of Mimi, and Aunt Clothilde, and the abhorred cathedral and the terrors of her flight to Paris. She had come, more or less, to an end, when Céleste brought in a Pekinese spaniel, and set him down on the hearthrug to a plate of minced raw beef, which he proceeded to devour with lightning gluttony. Having licked the polished plate from hearthrug to clattering parquet and licked it underneath in the hope of a grain of nourishment having melted through, he arched his tail above his back and composing his miniature leonine features, regarded his mistress with his soul in his eyes, as who should say: “Now, having tasted, when shall I truly dine?” But Lucilla sent him to his chair, where he assumed an attitude of polite surprise; and she explained to Félise, captivated by his doggy winsomeness, that she called him “Gaby,” which was short for Heliogabalus, the voluptuary; which allusion Félise, not being familiar with The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, did not understand. But, when Lucilla, breaking through rules of discipline, caught up the tawny little aristocrat and apostrophized him as “the noseless blunder,” Félise laughed heartily, thinking it very funny, and, holding the kitten in her left arm, took him from Lucilla with her right, and covered the tiny hedonist with caresses. When the meal was over, Lucilla took her, still embracing kitten and dog, into the studio—the wealthy feminine amateur’s studio—a room with polished floors and costly rugs and divans and tapestries and an easel or two and a great wood fire blazing up an imitation Renaissance chimney-piece. And Lucilla talked not only as though she had known Félise all her life, but as though Félise was the most fascinating little girl she had ever met. And it was all more Wonderland for Félise. And so it continued during the short evening; for Lucilla, seeing that she was tired, ordered the removal to their respective padded baskets of dog and cat, both of which Félise had retained in her embrace, and sent her to bed early; and it continued during the process of undressing amid the beautiful trifles wherewith she performed her toilette; and after she had put on the filmy, gossamer garment adorned with embroidered miracles that Céleste had laid out for her; and after she had sunk asleep in the fragrant linen of the warm nest. But in the middle of the night she awoke and saw the face of the dreadful woman in the Rue Maugrabine and heard the voice of her Aunt Clothilde speaking blasphemy against her father, and then she upbraided herself for being led away by the enchantment of the Wonder-house, and breaking down, sobbed for her lost illusions until the dawn.