Part 18

"Well, do be quiet, child, and listen to what The Flashlight says you said." "'What opinion have you formed of our society women and clubmen, on board the Willie?' was the next question.

"'I think your ladies are better dressed than ours, and the gentlemen are just lovely. They don't sit around and wait while we girls amuse them, they hustle to give us a good time, and they know how to do it. I shouldn't wonder if I should hate to go home and associate with lords after being a summer girl in Newport. I don't see now why American girls go out of their own country to marry.'

"'I suppose we shall be seeing your brother, the Duke, over here before long?'

"'His Grace may come to fetch me back,' replied her ladyship. 'He has never been to America, but it is one of the desires of his life to come, and your American beauties had better look out, for he is a gay young bachelor, and I shouldn't be surprised if he took a fancy to carry home a Duchess. Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox will entertain him also, and maybe he will paint some of America red.'"

"That's all about you, I see," Sally finished up. "The rest is about Cousin Katherine and me. It says we've come back with a touch of the Piccadilly accent; and it criticises my nose, and the way Cousin Katherine puts on her hat. It describes this house all wrong, and says the Newport cottage 'knocks spots' out of Mrs. Van der Windt's cottage. It also mentions Cousin Potter, and calls him 'one of our Army Dudes.' But we don't mind, and you mustn't. Everybody reads The Flashlight, for the sake of the shocks, but nobody believes its flashes."

"Still, you must have said something to the man," remarked Mrs. Ess Kay.

"I only said 'No, but--' or 'Yes, but--,'" I insisted. "Truly and truly nothing else. And oh, there was a Bat, too, who tried to talk to me."

"Great Scott! the Evening Bat," chortled Mr. Parker. "Look out for something rich to-night."

"Can't he be stopped?" I asked.

"Might as well try to stop Niagara--with a tin can; the less you said, the more the Bat will say. But it doesn't matter. Nobody'll care. Reporters are paid by the yard for imagination; information's gone out, though I do hear you use it still on your side."

I was just going to defend information (British) at the expense of imagination (American), when I remembered that the "Army Dude"--which sounds rather like something you might buy at the Stores--had sent me up an enormous bouquet of violets as big as a breakfast plate, and that I'd forgotten to thank him. I did so at once, but it seemed that I had blundered.

"Violets?" he echoed. "Must have been some other fellow. I sent you gardenias."

"Oh, then the cards got mixed," I said. "I thought the gardenias were from Mr. Doremus. How kind of you both. I was so surprised to receive such lovely flowers."

"Our American buds are surprised when they don't get them. They would think it a cold day when they didn't have a slight morning haul of flowers--must be out of season ones, or they're no use--new novels, or candy. What do men over on your side of the water do to convince you girls that they think you're as beautiful as you really are?"

I thought for a minute, and then I said that perhaps we weren't as hard to convince as American girls. I don't know whether this was a proper answer or not, but, anyway, Mr. Parker laughed, and then began to plan what we should do for the day.

"Say, let's run her over to Coney Island," he said.

"Oh, my dear boy!" exclaimed Mrs. Ess Kay. "Not for anything. The Duchess would have a fi--I mean, she would be horrified."

But when I heard that Coney Island was like a kind of glorified Margate (which I've never been to, but only heard about) with switchbacks and all sorts of shows, I said that Mother would consider it a chapter in the liberal education of a respectable British tourist; and it was decided that we should dine there. Mrs. Ess Kay had to do a lot of things before she could go on to Newport, so we were to shop all the morning, lunch at Sherry's, rest in the afternoon, and spend the evening at Coney Island. Next day we were to go to West Point, where Mr. Parker is stationed and stay there all night for a cadet ball.

Just as we had got this programme settled, and were making up our minds to go out early, "while it was cool" (we should all have been lying about with wet handkerchiefs on our foreheads at home, and there would have been special prayers in church, if it had ever been what New Yorkers seem to think cool) the butler came in leading by a leash a perfect angel of a dog, a little French bull, with skin satiny as a ripe chestnut, and eyes like rosettes of brown velvet, with diamonds shining through them. He had on a spikey silver collar, fringed on each edge with white horsehair, and he came trotting into the room with a high action of his paws, dainty and proud, like a horse that knows he's on show; and his tiny head was cocked on one side as if he were asking us to please admire him and be his friends.

I supposed that the little fellow belonged to Mrs. Ess Kay, and that he was being brought in to bid his mistress good morning, but she said quite sharply, "What dog is that?"

"He's a parcel, ma'am," said the butler, "addressed to Lady Betty Bulkeley. He was left at the door by a messenger boy, and the label's on his collar."

In another instant that little live, warm bundle of brindled satin sewed on to steel wires was in my lap, and it did seem as if he knew that he was mine. The queerest thing was that he had no note with him. On the label--just a luggage label tied on his collar--was my name, in a strange, but very interesting looking hand, and these words besides: "The Dog is now found. His name is Vivace."

"Who has sent it to you, Betty?" asked Mrs. Ess Kay; and I could see by her eyes that she was very curious.

I had just answered, "I don't know from Adam," when some words of my own jumped into my head. I could hear myself saying, "I must first find the dog," and then I knew that the giver of Vivace wasn't Adam. But luckily I hadn't thought before I spoke, so it was no harm to let it rest at that; and I just sat and played with my new toy while Mrs. Ess Kay and her brother jabbered about him excitedly.

"It must be Tom Doremus," said she. "He's the only man I let you know well enough on board to take such a liberty."

I thought of another man she hadn't wanted to let me know; but I rubbed my chin on Vivace's ear, which felt like a wall-flower, and kept quiet.

"Cheek of Doremus," remarked Mr. Parker. "He's a Josher from wayback. How does he know Lady Betty likes dogs? I should send the little brute off to the Dogs' Home."

"If Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox makes me do that, I shall have to go with him--and stop with him, too," said I. And I almost hated Mr. Parker for a minute in spite of the walking-stick roses and the snowstorm of gardenias upstairs.