"Cereal?" considered Flame. "Oh that's all right," she glowed suddenly. "I've paid cash for the telephoning and charged the cereal."
With a swallow faintly guttural Flame's Mother hung up the receiver. "Dogs-do-not-have-butlers," she persisted unshakenly.
She was perfectly right. They did not, it seemed.
No one was quicker than Flame to acknowledge a mistake. Before five o'clock Flame had added a telephone item to the cereal bill.
"Oh-Mother," questioned Flame. "The little red sweater and Tam that I have on?-Would they be all right, do you think, for me to make a call in? Not a formal call, of course,-just a-a neighborly greeting at the door? It being Christmas Eve and everything!-And as long as I have to pass right by the house anyway?-There is a lady at the Rattle-Pane House! A-A-what Father would call a Lady Maiden!-Miss-"
"Oh not a real lady, I think," protested her Mother. "Not with all those dogs. No real lady I think would have so many dogs.-It-It isn't sanitary."
"Isn't-sanitary?" cried Flame. "Why Mother, they are the most absolutely-perfectly sanitary dogs you ever saw in your life!" Into her eager young voice an expression of ineffable dignity shot suddenly. "Well-really, Mother," she said, "In whatever concerns men or crocheting-I'm perfectly willing to take Father's advice or yours. But after all, I'm eighteen," stiffened the young voice. "And when it comes to dogs-I must use my own judgment!"
"And just what is the lady's name?" questioned her Mother a bit weakly.
"Her name is 'Miss Flora'!" brightened Flame. "The Butler has just gone to the Station to meet her! I heard him telephoning quite frenziedly! I think she must have missed her train or something! It seemed to make everybody very nervous! Maybe she's nervous! Maybe she's a nervous invalid! With a lost Lover somewhere! And all sorts of pressed flowers!-Somebody ought to call anyway! Call right away, I mean, before she gets any more nervous!-So many people's first impressions of a place-I've heard-are spoiled for lack of some perfectly silly little thing like a nutmeg grater or a hot water bottle! And oh, Mother, it's been so long since any one lived in the Rattle-Pane House! Not for years and years and years! Not dogs, anyway! Not a lemon and white wolf hound! Not setters! Not spotty dogs!-Oh Mother, just one little wee single minute at the door? Just long enough to say 'The Rev. and Mrs. Flamande Nourice, and Miss Nourice, present their compliments!'-And are you by any chance short a marrow-bone? Or would you possibly care to borrow an extra quilt to rug-up under the kitchen table?... Blunder-Blot doesn't look very thick. Or-Oh Mother, p-l-e-a-s-e!"
When Flame said "Please" like that the word was no more, no less, than the fabled bundle of rags or haunch of venison hurled back from a wolf-pursued sleigh to divert the pursuer even temporarily from the main issue. While Flame's Mother paused to consider the particularly flavorous sweetness of that entreaty,-to picture the flashing eye, the pulsing throat, the absurdly crinkled nostril that invariably accompanied all Flame's entreaties, Flame herself was escaping!
Taken all in all, escaping was one of the best things that Flame did.... As well as the most becoming! Whipped into scarlet by the sudden plunge from a stove-heated store into the frosty night her young cheeks fairly blazed their bright reaction. Frost and speed quickened her breath. Glint for glint her shining eyes challenged the moon. Fearful even yet that some tardy admonition might overtake her she sped like a deer through the darkness.
It was a dull-smelling night. Pretty, but very dull-smelling. Disdainfully her nostrils crinkled their disappointment.
"Christmas Time adventures ought to smell like Christmas!" she scolded. "Maybe if I'm ever President," she argued, "I won't do so awfully well with the Tariff or things like that! But Christmas shall smell of Christmas! Not just of frozen mud! And camphor balls!... I'll have great vats of Fir Balsam essence at every street corner! And gigantic atomizers! And every passerby shall be sprayed! And stores! And churches! And-And everybody who doesn't like Christmas shall be dipped!"
Under her feet the smoothish village road turned suddenly into the harsh and hobbly ruts of a country lane. With fluctuant blackness against immutable blackness great sweeping pine trees swished weirdly into the horizon. Where the hobbly lane curved darkly into a meadow through a snarl of winter-stricken willows the rattle of a loose window-pane smote quite distinctly on the ear. It was a horrid, deserted sound. And with the instinctive habit of years Flame's little hand clutched at her heart. Then quite abruptly she laughed aloud.
"Oh you can't scare me any more, you gloomy old Rattle-Pane House!" she laughed. "You're not deserted now! People are Christmasing in you! Whether you like it or not you're being Christmased!"
Very tentatively she puckered her lips to a whistle. Almost instantly from the darkness ahead a dog's bark rang out, deep, sonorous, faintly suspicious. With a little chuckle of joy she crawled through the Barberry hedge and emerged for a single instant only at her full height before three furry shapes came hurtling out of the darkness and toppled her over backwards.
"Stop, Beautiful-Lovely!" she gasped. "Stop, Lopsy! Behave yourself, Blunder-Blot! Sillies! Don't you know I'm the lady that was talking to you this morning through the picket fence? Don't you know I'm the lady that fed you the box of cereal?-Oh dear-Oh dear-Oh dear," she struggled. "I knew, of course, that there were three dogs-but who ever in the world would have guessed that three could be so many?"
As expeditiously as possible she picked herself up and bolted for the house with two furry shapes leaping largely on either side of her and one cold nose sniffing interrogatively at her heels. Her heart was very light,-her pulses jumping with excitement,-an occasional furry head doming into the palm of her hand warmed the whole bleak night with its sense of mute companionship. But the back of her heels felt certainly very queer. Even the warm yellow lights of the Rattle-Pane House did not altogether dispel her uneasiness.
"Maybe I'd better not plan to make my call so-so very informal," she decided suddenly. "Not at a house where there are quite so many dogs! Not at a house where there is a butler ... anyway!"
Crowding and pushing and yelping and fawning around her, it was the dogs who announced her ultimate arrival. Like a drift of snow the huge wolf-hound whirled his white shagginess into the vestibule. Shrill as a banging blind the impetuous coach-dog lurched his sleek weight against the door. Sucking at a crack of light the red setter's kindled nose glowed and snorted with dragonlike ferocity. Without knock or ring the door-handle creaked and turned, three ecstatic shapes went hurtling through a yellow glare into the hall beyond, and Flame found herself staring up into the blinking, astonished eyes of the crumpled old man with the red waistcoat.
"G-Good evening,-Butler!" she rallied.
"Good evening, Miss!" stammered the Butler.
"I've-I've come to call," confided Flame.
"To-call?" stammered the Butler.
"Yes," conceded Flame. "I-I don't happen to have an engraved card with me." Before the continued imperturbability of the old Butler all subterfuge seemed suddenly quite useless. "I never have had an engraved card," she confided quite abruptly. "But you might tell Miss Flora if you please-" ... Would nothing crack the Butler's imperturbability?... Well maybe she could prove just a little bit imperturbable herself! "Oh! Butlers don't 'tell' people things, do they?... They always 'announce' things, don't they?... Well, kindly announce to Miss Flora that the-the Minister's Daughter is-at the door!... Oh, no! It isn't asking for a subscription or anything!" she hastened quite suddenly to explain. "It's just a Christian call!... B-Being so nervous and lost on the train and everything ... we thought Miss Flora might be glad to know that there were neighbors.... We live so near and everything.... And can run like the wind! Oh, not Mother, of course!... She's a bit stout! And Father starts all right but usually gets thinking of something else! But I...? Kindly announce to Miss Flora," she repeated with palpable crispness, "that the Minister's Daughter is at the door!"