I looked where he pointed, and saw nothing but a fair-haired woman in a white gown, sitting in a low basket-chair, with a tiny toy terrier on her lap. The terrier was jealously guarding a large square dog-biscuit nearly as big as himself, and at a little distance off sat a magnificent rough-coated St Bernard, wagging his feathery tail to and fro, with every sign of good-humour and enjoyment. The position was evident at a glance,--the small dog had taken his huge companion's biscuit from him and had conveyed it to his mistress,--a canine joke which seemed to be appreciated and understood by all the parties concerned. But as I watched the little group, I did not believe that she whom I saw was Mavis Clare. That small head was surely never made for the wearing of deathless laurels, but rather for a garland of roses, (sweet and perishable) twined by a lover's hand. No such slight feminine creature as the one I now looked upon could ever be capable of the intellectual grasp and power of 'Differences,' the book I secretly admired and wondered at, but which I had anonymously striven to 'quash' in its successful career. The writer of such a work, I imagined, must needs be of a more or less strong physique, with pronounced features and an impressive personality. This butterfly-thing, playing with her dog, was no type of a 'blue-stocking,' and I said as much to Lucio. "That cannot be Miss Clare," I said--"More likely a visitor,--or perhaps the companion-secretary. The novelist must be very different in appearance to that frivolous young person in white, whose dress is distinctly Parisian, and who seems to have nothing whatever to do but amuse herself." "Tricksy!" said the clear voice again--"Take back the biscuit and apologise!" The tiny terrier looked round with an innocently abstracted air, as if in the earnestness of his own thoughts, he had not quite caught the meaning of the sentence. "Tricksy!" and the voice became more imperative--"Take it back and apologise!" With a comical expression of resignation to circumstances, 'Tricksy' seized the large biscuit, and holding it in his teeth with gingerly care, jumped from his mistress's knee and trotting briskly up to the St Bernard who was still wagging his tail and smiling as visibly as dogs often can smile, restored his stolen goods with three short yapping barks as much as to say "There! take it!" The St Bernard rose in all his majestic bulk and sniffed at it,--then sniffed his small friend, apparently in dignified doubt as to which was terrier and which was biscuit,--then lying down again, he gave himself up to the pleasure of munching his meal, the while "Tricksy" with wild barks of delight performed a sort of mad war-dance round and round him by way of entertainment. This piece of dog-comedy was still going on, when Lucio turned away from his point of observation at the fence, and going up to the gate, rang the bell. A neat maid-servant answered the summons. "Is Miss Clare at home?" he asked.