The Little Colonel's Hero

THE RED CROSS OF GENEVA

A week after the runaway the handsomest collar that could be bought in town was fastened around Hero's neck. It had taken a long time to get it, for Mr. Sherman went to many shops before he found material that he considered good enough for the rescuer of his little daughter. Then the jeweller had to keep it several days while he engraved an inscription on the gold name-plate—an inscription that all who read might know what happened on a certain July day in the old Swiss town of Geneva. On the under side of the collar was a stout link like the one on his old one, to which the flask could be fastened when he was harnessed for service, and on the upper side, finely wrought in enamel, was a red cross on a white square.

"Papa Jack!" exclaimed Lloyd, examining it with interest, "that is the same design that is on his blanket and shouldah-bags. Why, it's just like the Swiss flag!" she cried, looking out at the banner floating from the pier. "Only the colours are turned around. The flag has a white cross on a red ground, and this is a red cross on a white ground. Why did you have it put on the collah, Papa Jack?"

"Because he is a Red Cross dog," answered her father.

"No, Papa Jack. Excuse me for contradictin', but the Majah said he was a St. Bernard dog."

Mr. Sherman laughed, but before he could explain he was called to the office to answer a telegram. When he returned Lloyd had disappeared to find the Major, and ask about the symbol on the collar. She found him in his favourite seat near the fountain, in the shady courtyard. Perching on a bench near by with Hero for a foot-stool, she asked, "Majah, is Hero a St. Bernard or a Red Cross dog?"

"He is both," answered the Major, smiling at her puzzled expression. "He is the first because he belongs to that family of dogs, and he is the second because he was adopted by the Red Cross Association, and trained for its service. You know what that is, of course."

Still Lloyd looked puzzled. She shook her head. "No, I nevah heard of it. Is it something Swiss or French?"

"Never heard of it!" repeated the Major. He spoke in such a surprised tone that his voice sounded gruff and loud, and Lloyd almost jumped. The harshness was so unexpected.

"Think again, child," he said, sternly. "Surely you have been told, at least, of your brave countrywoman who is at the head of the organisation in America, who nursed not only the wounded of your own land, but followed the Red Cross of mercy on many foreign battle-fields!"

"Oh, a hospital nurse!" said Lloyd, wrinkling her forehead and trying to think. "Miss Alcott was one. Everybody knows about her, and her 'Hospital Sketches' are lovely."

"No! no!" exclaimed the Major, impatiently. Lloyd, feeling from his tone that ignorance on this subject was something he could not excuse, tried again.

"I've heard of Florence Nightingale. In one of my books at home, a Chatterbox, I think, there is a picture of her going through a hospital ward. Mothah told me how good she was to the soldiahs, and how they loved her. They even kissed her shadow on the wall as she passed. They were so grateful."

"Ah, yes," murmured the old man. "Florence Nightingale will live long in song and story. An angel of mercy she was, through all the horrors of the Crimean War; but she was an English woman, my dear. The one I mean is an American, and her name ought to go down in history with the bravest of its patriots and the most honoured of its benefactors. I learned to know her first in that long siege at Strasburg. She nursed me there, and I have followed her career with grateful interest ever since, noting with admiration all that she has done for her country and humanity the world over.

"If America ever writes a woman's name in her temple of fame, dear child (I say it with uncovered head), that one should be the name of Clara Barton."

The old soldier lifted his hat as he spoke, and replaced it so solemnly that Lloyd felt very uncomfortable, as if she were in some way to blame for not knowing and admiring this Red Cross nurse of whom she had never heard. Her face flushed, and much embarrassed, she drew the toe of her slipper along Hero's back, answering, in an abused tone:

"But, Majah, how could I be expected to know anything about her? There is nothing in ou' school-books, and nobody told me, and Papa Jack won't let me read the newspapahs, they're so full of horrible murdahs and things. So how could I evah find out? I couldn't learn everything in twelve yeahs, and that's all the longah I've lived."

The Major laughed. "Forgive me, little one!" he cried, seeing the distress and embarrassment in her face. "A thousand pardons! The fault is not yours, but your country's, that it has not taught its children to honour its benefactor as she deserves. I am glad that it has been given to me to tell you the story of one of the most beautiful things that ever happened in Switzerland—the founding of the Red Cross. You will remember it with greater interest, I am sure, because, while I talk, the cross of the Swiss flag floats over us, and it was here in this old town of Geneva the merciful work had its beginning."

Lloyd settled herself to listen, still stroking Hero's back with her slipper toe.

"He was my friend, Henri Durant, and in the old days of chivalry they would have made him knight for the noble thought that sprang to flower in his heart and to fruitage in so worthy a deed. He was travelling in Italy years ago, and happening to be near the place where the battle of Solferino was fought, he was so touched by the sufferings of the wounded that he stopped to help care for them in the hospitals. The sights he saw there were horrible. The wounded men could not be cared for properly. They died by the hundreds, because there were not enough nurses and surgeons and food.

"It moved him to write a book which was translated into several languages. People of many countries became interested and were aroused to a desire to do something to relieve the deadly consequences of war. Then he called a meeting of all the nations of Europe. That was over thirty years ago. Sixteen of the great powers sent men to represent them. They met here in Geneva and signed a treaty. One by one other countries followed their example, until now forty governments are pledged to keep the promises of the Red Cross.

"They chose that as their flag in compliment to Switzerland, where the movement was started. You see they are the same except that the colours are reversed.

"Now, according to that treaty, wherever the Red Cross goes, on sea or on land, it means peace and safety for the wounded soldiers. In the midst of the bloodiest battle, no matter who is hurt, Turk or Russian, Japanese or Spaniard, Armenian or Arab, he is bound to be protected and cared for. No nurse, surgeon, or ambulance bearing that Red Cross can be fired upon. They are allowed to pass wherever they are needed.

"Before the nations joined in that treaty, the worst horror of war was the fate of a wounded soldier, falling into the hands of the enemy. Better a thousand times to be killed in battle, than to be taken prisoner. Think of being left, bleeding and faint, on an enemy's field till your clothes froze to the ground, and no one merciful enough to give you a crust of bread or a drop of water. Think of the dying piled with the dead and left to the pitiless rays of a scorching, tropic sun. That can never happen again, thank Heaven!

"In time of peace, money and supplies are gathered and stored by each country, ready for use at the first signal of war. To show her approval, the empress became the head of the branch in Germany. Soon after the Franco-Prussian war began, and then her only daughter, the Grand Duchess Louise of Baden, turned all her beautiful castles into military hospitals, and went herself to superintend the work of relief.

"Your country did not join with us at first. You were having a terrible war at home; the one in which your grandfather fought. All this time Clara Barton was with the soldiers on their bloodiest battle-fields. When you go home, ask your grandfather about the battles of Bull Run and Antietam, Fredericksburg and the Wilderness. She was there. She stood the strain of nursing in sixteen such awful places, going from cot to cot among the thousands of wounded, comforting the dying, and dragging many a man back from the very grave by her untiring, unselfish devotion.

"When the war was over, she spent four years searching for the soldiers reported missing. Hundreds and hundreds of pitiful letters came to her, giving name, regiment, and company of some son or husband or brother, who had marched away to the wars and never returned. These names could not be found among the lists of the killed. They were simply reported as 'missing'; whether dead or a deserter, no one could tell. She had spent weeks at Andersonville the summer after the war, identifying and marking the graves there. She marked over twelve thousand. So when these letters came imploring her aid, she began the search, visiting the old prisons, and trenches and hospitals, until she removed from twenty thousand names the possible suspicion that the men who bore them had been deserters.

"No wonder that she came to Europe completely broken down in health, so exhausted by her long, severe labours that her physicians told her she must rest several years. But hardly was she settled here in Switzerland when the Franco-Prussian war broke out, and the Red Cross sought her aid, knowing how valuable her long experience in nursing would be to them. She could not refuse their appeals, and once more started in the wake of powder smoke, and cannon's roar.

"But I'll not start on that chapter of her life, for, if I did, I would not know where to stop. It was there I met her, there she nursed me back to life; then I learned to appreciate her devotion to the cause of humankind. This second long siege against suffering made her an invalid for many years.

"The other nations wondered why America refused to join them in their humane work. All other civilised countries were willing to lend a hand. But Clara Barton knew that it was because the people were ignorant of its real purpose that they did not join the alliance, and she promised that she would devote the remainder of her life, if need be, to showing America that as long as she refused to sign that treaty, she was standing on a level with barbarous and heathen countries.

"For years she was too ill to push the work she had set for herself. When her strength at last returned, she had to learn to walk. At last, however, she succeeded. America signed the treaty. Then, through her efforts, the American National Red Cross was organised. She was made president of it. While no war, until lately, has called for its services, the Red Cross has found plenty to do in times of great national calamities. You have had terrible fires and floods, cyclones, and scourges of yellow fever. Then too, it has taken relief to Turkey and lately has found work in Cuba.

"I know that you would like to look into Miss Barton's jewel-box. Old Emperor William himself gave her the Iron Cross of Prussia. The Grand Duke and Duchess of Baden sent her the Gold Cross of Remembrance. Medals and decorations from many sovereigns are there—the Queen of Servia, the Sultan of Turkey, the Prince of Armenia. Never has any American woman been so loved and honoured abroad, and never has an American woman been more worthy of respect at home. It must be a great joy to her now, as she sits in the evening of life, to count her jewels of remembrance, and feel that she has done so much to win the gratitude of her fellow creatures.

"You came to visit Switzerland because it is the home of many heroes; but let me tell you, my child, this little republic has more to show the world than its William Tell chapels and its Lion of Lucerne. As long as the old town of Geneva stands, the world will not forget that here was given a universal banner of peace, and here was signed its greatest treaty—the treaty of the Red Cross."

As the Major stopped, the Little Colonel looked up at the white cross floating above the pier, and then down at the red one on Hero's collar, and drew a long breath.

"I wish I could do something like that!" she exclaimed, earnestly. "I used to wish that I could go out like Joan of Arc to do some great thing that would make people write books about me, and carve me on statues, and paint pictures and sing songs in my honah, but I believe that now I'd rathah do something bettah than ride off to battle on a prancin' white chargah. Thank you, Majah, for tellin' me the story. I'm goin' for a walk now. May I take Hero?"

A few minutes later the two were wandering along beside the water together, the Little Colonel dreaming day-dreams of valiant deeds that she might do some day, so that kings would send her a Gold Cross of Remembrance, and men would say with uncovered heads, as the old Major had done, "If America ever writes a woman's name in her temple of fame, that one should be the name of Lloyd Sherman—The Little Colonel!"

THE WONDER-BALL'S BEST GIFT

As the time drew near for them to move northward, Lloyd began counting the hours still left to her to spend with her new-found friends.

"Only two moah days, mothah," she sighed "Only two moah times to go walking with Hero. It seems to me that I can't say good-bye and go away, and nevah see him again as long as I live!"

"He is going with us part of the way," answered Mrs. Sherman. "The Major told us last night that he had decided to visit his niece who lives at Zürich. We will stop first for a few days at a little town called Zug, beside a lake of the same name. There is a William Tell chapel near there that the Major wants to show us, and he will go up the Rigi with us. I think he dreads parting with you fully as much as you do from Hero. His eyes follow every movement you make. So many times in speaking of you he has called you Christine."

"I know," answered Lloyd, thoughtfully. "He seems to mix me up with her in his thoughts, all the time. He is so old I suppose he is absent-minded. When I'm as old as he is, I won't want to travel around as he does. I'll want to settle down in some comfortable place and stay there."

"From what he said last night, I judge that this is the last time he expects to visit that part of Switzerland. When he was a little boy he used to visit his grandmother, who lived near Zug. The chalet where she lived is still standing, and he wants to see it once more, he said, before he dies."

"He must know lots of stories about the place," said Lloyd.

"He does. He has tramped all over the mountain back of the town after wild strawberries, followed the peasants to the mowing, and gone to many a fête in the village. We are fortunate to have such an interesting guide."

"I wish that Betty could be with us to hear all the stories he tells us," said Lloyd, beginning to look forward to the journey with more pleasure, now that she knew there was a prospect of being entertained by the Major. Usually she grew tired of the confinement in the little railway carriages where there were no aisles to walk up and down in, and fidgeted and yawned and asked the time of day at every station.

During the first part of the journey toward Zug, the Major had little to say. He leaned wearily back in his seat with his eyes closed much of the time. But as they began passing places that were connected with interesting scenes of his childhood, he roused himself, and pointed them out with as much enjoyment as if he were a schoolboy, coming home on his first vacation.

"See those queer little towers still left standing on the remnants of the old town wall," he said as they approached Zug. "The lake front rests on a soft, shifting substratum of sand, and there is danger, when the water is unusually low, that it may not be able to support the weight of the houses built upon it. One day, over four hundred years ago, part of the wall and some of the towers sank down into the lake with twenty-six houses.

"I have heard my grandmother tell of it, many a time, as she heard the tale from her grandmother. Many lives were lost that day, and there was a great panic. Later in the day, some one saw a cradle floating out in the lake, and when it was drawn in, there lay a baby, cooing and kicking up his heels as happily as if cradle-rides on the water were common occurrences. He was the little son of the town clerk, and grew up to be one of my ancestors. Grandmother was very fond of telling that tale, how the baby smiled on his rescuers, and what a fine, pleasant man he grew up to be, beloved by the whole village.

"It has not been much over a dozen years since another piece of the town sank down into the water. A long stretch of lake front with houses and gardens and barns was sucked under."

"How dreadful!" exclaimed Lloyd, with a shiver. "Let us go somewhere else, Papa Jack," she begged. "I don't want to sleep in a place where the bottom may drop out any minute."

Her father laughed at her fears, and the Major assured her that they would not take her to a hotel near the water's edge.

"We are going to the other side of the town, to an inn that stands close against the mountainside. The inn-keeper is an old friend of mine, who has lived here all his life."

In spite of all they said to quiet her fears, the Little Colonel was far from feeling comfortable, and took small pleasure at first in going to see the sights of the quaint little town. She was glad when they pushed away from the pier next morning, in the steamboat that was to take them across the lake to the William Tell chapel. She dreaded to return, but a handful of letters from Lloydsboro Valley, and one apiece from Betty and Eugenia that she found awaiting her at the inn, made her forget the shifting sands below her. She read and re-read some of them, answered several, and then began to look for the Major and Hero. They were nowhere to be found.

They went away directly after lunch, her father told her, to the chalet on the mountain back of the town. "You will have to be content with my humble society," he added. "You can't expect to be always escorted by titled soldiers and heroes."

"Now you're teasin'," said Lloyd, with a playful pout. "But I do wish that the Majah had left Hero. There are so few times left for us to go walkin' togethah."

"I'm afraid that you look oftener at that dog than you do at the scenery and the foreign sights that you came over here to see," said her father, with a smile. "You can see dogs in Lloydsboro Valley any day."

"But none like Hero," cried the Little Colonel, loyally. "And I am noticin' the sights, Papa Jack. I think there was nevah anything moah beautiful than these mountains, and I just love it heah when it is so sunny and still. Listen to the goat-bells tinklin' away up yondah where that haymakah is climbing with a pack of hay tied on his shouldahs! And how deep and sweet the church-bell sounds down heah in the valley as it tolls across the watah! The lake looks as blue as the sapphires in mothah's necklace. The pictuah it makes for me is one of the loveliest things that my wondah-ball has unrolled. Nobody could have a bettah birthday present than this trip has been. The only thing about it that has made me unhappy for a minute is that I must leave Hero and nevah see him again. He follows me just as well now as he does his mastah."

The Major came back from his long climb up the mountain, very tired. "It is more than I should have undertaken the first day," he said, "but back here in the scenes of my boyhood I find it hard to realise that I am an old, old man. I'll be rested in the morning, however, ready for whatever comes."

But in the morning he was still much exhausted, and came down-stairs leaning heavily on his cane. He asked to be excused from going up on the Rigi with them. He said that he would stay at home and sit in the sun and rest. They offered to postpone the trip, but he insisted on their going without him. They must be moving on to Zürich, soon, he reminded them, and they might not have another day of such perfect weather, for the excursion.

Hero stood looking from the Major in his chair, to the Little Colonel, standing with her hat and jacket on, ready to start. He could not understand why he and his master should be left behind, and walked from one to the other, wagging his tail and looking up questioningly into their faces.

"Go, if you wish," said the Major, kindly patting his head. "Go and take good care of thy little Christine. Let no harm befall her this day!" The dog bounded away as if glad of the permission, but at the door turned back, and seeing that the Major was not following, picked up his hat in his mouth. Then, carrying it back to the Major, stood looking up into his master's face, wagging his tail.

The Major took the hat and laid it on the table beside him. "No, not to-day, good friend," he said, smiling at the dog's evident wish to have him go also. "You may go without me, this time. Call him, Christine, if you wish his company."

"Come Hero, come on," called Lloyd. "It's all right."

The Major waved his hand toward her, saying, "Go, Hero. Guard her well and bring her back safely. The dear little Christine!" The name was uttered almost in a whisper.

With a quick, short bark, Hero started after the Little Colonel, staying so closely by her side that they entered the train together before the guard could protest. If he could have resisted the appealing look in the Little Colonel's eyes as she threw an arm protectingly around Hero's neck, he could not find it in his heart to refuse the silver that Papa Jack slipped into his hand; so for once the two comrades travelled side by side. Hero sat next the window, and looked out anxiously, as the little mountain engine toiled up the steep ascent, nearer and nearer to the top.

It was noon when they reached the hotel on the summit where they stopped for lunch.

"How solemn it makes you feel to be up so high above all the world!" said Lloyd, in an awed tone, as they walked around that afternoon, and took turns looking through the great telescope, at the valley spread out like a map below them.

"How tiny the lake looks, and the town is like a toy village! I thought that the top of a mountain went up to a fine point like a church steeple, and that there wouldn't be a place to stand on when you got there. Seems that way when you look up at it from the valley. It doesn't seem possible that it is big enough to have hotels built on it and lots and lots of room left ovah. When the Majah said to Hero, in such a solemn way, 'Take good care of thy little Christine, let no harm befall her this day,' I thought maybe he wanted Hero to hold my dress in his teeth, so that I couldn't fall off."

Mrs. Sherman laughed and Mr. Sherman said, "Do you know that you are actually up above the clouds? What seems to be mist, rolling over the valley down there like a dense fog, is really cloud. In a short time we shall not be able to see through it."

"Oh, oh!" cried the Little Colonel, in astonishment. "Really, Papa Jack? I always thought that if I could get up into the clouds I could reach out and touch the moon and the stars. Of co'se I know bettah now, but I should think I'd be neah enough to see them."

"No," answered her father, "that is one of the sad facts of life. No matter how loudly we may cry for the moon, it is hung too high for us to reach, and the 'forget-me-nots of the angels,' as Longfellow calls the stars, are not for hands like ours to pick. But in a very little while I think that we shall see the lightning below us. Those clouds down there are full of rain. They may rise high enough to give us a wetting, so it would be wise for us to hurry back to the hotel."

"It is the strangest thing that evah happened to me in all my life!" said Lloyd a few minutes later, as they sat on the hotel piazza, watching the storm below them. Overhead the summer sun was shining brightly, but just below the heavy storm clouds rolled, veiling all the valley from sight. They could see the forked tongues of lightning darting back and forth far below them, and hear the heavy rumble of thunder.

"It seems so wondahful to think that we are safe up above the storm. Look! There is a rainbow! And there is anothah and anothah! Oh, it is so beautiful, I'm glad it rained!"

The storm, that had lasted for nearly an hour, gradually cleared away till the valley lay spread out before them once more, in the sunshine, green and dripping from the summer shower.

"Well," said the Little Colonel, as they started homeward, "aftah this I'll remembah that no mattah how hard it rains the sun is always shining somewhere. It nevah hides itself from us. It is the valley that gets behind the clouds, just as if it was puttin' a handkerchief ovah its face when it wanted to cry. It's a comfort to know that the sun keeps shining, on right on, unchanged."

It was nearly dark when they reached the little inn again in Zug. The narrow streets were wet, and the eaves of the houses still dripping. The landlord came out to meet them with an anxious face. "Your friend, the old Major," he said, in his broken English, "he have not yet return. I fear the storm for him was bad."

"Where did he go?" inquired Mr. Sherman. "I did not know that he intended leaving the hotel at all to-day. He did not seem well."

"Early after lunch," was the answer. "He say he will up the mountain go, behind the town. He say that now he vair old man, maybe not again will he come this way, and one more time already before he die, he long to gather for himself the Alpine rosen."

"Have you had a hard storm here?" asked Mrs. Sherman.

The landlord shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands.

"The vair worst, madame. Many trees blow down. The lightning he strike a house next to the church of St. Oswald, and a goatherd coming down just now from the mountain say that the paths are heaped with fallen limbs, and slippery with mud. That is why for I fear the Major have one accident met."

"Maybe he has stopped at some peasant's hut for shelter," suggested Mr. Sherman, seeing the distress in Lloyd's face. "He knows the region around here thoroughly. However, if he is not here by the time we are through dinner, we'll organise a searching party."

"Hero knows that something is wrong," said the Little Colonel, as they went into the dining-room a few minutes later. "See how uneasy he seems, walking from room to room. He is trying to find his mastah."

The longer they discussed the Major's absence the more alarmed they became, as the time passed and he did not return.

"You know," suggested Lloyd, "that with just one arm he couldn't help himself much if he should fall. Maybe he has slipped down some of those muddy ravines that the goatherd told about. Besides, he was so weak and tiahed this mawnin.'"

Presently her face brightened with a sudden thought.

"Oh, Papa Jack! Let's send Hero. I know where the Majah keeps his things, the flask and the bags, and the dog will know, as soon as they are fastened on him, that he must start on a hunt. And I believe I can say the words in French so that he'll undahstand. Only yestahday the Majah had me repeating them."

"That's a bright idea," answered her father, who was really more anxious than he allowed any one to see. "At least it can do no harm to try."

"I don't want any dessert. Mayn't I go now?" Lloyd asked. As she hurried up the stairs, her heart beating with excitement, she whispered to herself, "Oh, if he should happen to be lost or hurt, and Hero should find him, it would be the loveliest thing that evah happened."

Hero seemed to know, from the moment he saw the little flask marked with the well-known Red Cross, what was expected of him. All the guests in the inn gathered around the door to see him start on his uncertain quest. He sniffed excitedly at his master's slipper, which Lloyd held out to him. Then, as she motioned toward the mountain, and gave the command in French that the Major had taught her, he bounded out into the gloaming, with several quick short barks, and darted up the narrow street that led to the mountain road.

Maybe if he had not been with his master that way, the day before, he might not have known what path to take. The heavy rain had washed away all trails, so he could not trace him by the sense of smell; but remembering the path which they had travelled together the previous day, he instinctively started up that.

The group in the doorway of the inn watched him as long as they could see the white line of his silvery ruff gleam through the dusk, and then, going back to the parlour, sat down to wait for his return. To most of them it was a matter of only passing interest. They were curious to know how much the dog's training would benefit his master, under the circumstances, if he should be lost. But to the Little Colonel it seemed a matter of life and death. She walked nervously up and down the hall with her hands behind her, watching the clock and running to the door to peer out in the darkness, every time she heard a sound.

Some one played a noisy two-step on the loose-jointed old piano. A young man sang a serenade in Italian, and two girls, after much coaxing, consented to join in a high, shrill duet.

Light-hearted laughter and a babel of conversation floated from the parlour to the hall, where Lloyd watched and waited. Her father waited with her, but he had a newspaper. Lloyd wondered how he could read while such an important search was going on. She did not know that he had little faith in the dog's ability to find his master. She, however, had not a single doubt of it.

The time seemed endless. Again and again the little cuckoo in the hall clock came out to call the hour, the quarters and halves. At last there was a patter of big soft paws on the porch, and Lloyd springing to the door, met Hero on the threshold. Something large and gray was in his mouth.

"Oh, Papa Jack!" she cried. "He's found him! Hero's found him! This is the Majah's Alpine hat. The flask is gone from his collah, so the Majah must have needed help. And see how wild Hero is to start back. Oh, Papa Jack! Hurry, please!"

Her call brought every one from the parlour to see the dog, who was springing back and forth with eager barks that asked, as plainly as words, for some one to follow him.

"Oh, let me go with you! Please, Papa Jack," begged Lloyd.

He shook his head decidedly. "No, it is too late and dark, and no telling how far we shall have to climb. You have already done your part, my dear, in sending the dog. If the Major is really in need of help, he will have you to thank for his rescue."

The landlord called for lanterns. Several of the guests seized their hats and alpenstocks, and in a few minutes the little relief party was hurrying along the street after their trusty guide, with Mr. Sherman in the lead. He had caught up a hammock as he started. "We may need some kind of a stretcher," he said, slinging it over his shoulder.

They trudged on in silence, wondering what they would find at the end of their journey. The mountain path was strewn with limbs broken off by the storm. Although the moon came up presently and added its faint light to the yellow rays of the lanterns, they had to pick their steps slowly, often stumbling.

Hero, bounding on ahead, paused to look back now and then, with impatient barks. They had climbed more than an hour, when he suddenly shot ahead into the darkest part of the woods and gave voice so loudly that they knew that they had reached the end of their search, and pushed forward anxiously.

The moonlight could not reach this spot among the trees, so densely shaded, but the lanterns showed them the old man a short distance from the path. He was pinned to the wet earth by a limb that had fallen partly across him. Fortunately, the storm had been unable to twist it entirely from the tree. Only the outer end of the limb had struck him, but the tangle of leafy boughs above him was too thick to creep through. His clothes were drenched, and on the ground beside him, beaten flat by the storm, lay the bunch of Alpine roses he had climbed so far to find.

He was conscious when the men reached him. The brandy in the flask had revived him and as they drew him out from under the branches and stretched the hammock over some poles for a litter, he told them what had happened. He had been some distance farther up the mountain, and had stopped at a peasant's hut for some goat's milk. He rested there a long time, never noticing in the dense shade of the woods that a storm was gathering.

It came upon him suddenly. His head was hurt, and his back. He could not tell how badly. He had lain so long on the wet ground that he was numb with cold, but thought he would be better when he was once more resting warm and dry at the inn.

He stretched out his hand to Hero and feebly patted him, a faint smile crossing his face. "Thou best of friends," he whispered. "Thou—" Then he stopped, closing his eyes with a groan. They were lifting him on the stretcher, and the pain caused by the movement made him faint.

It was a slow journey down the slippery mountain path. The men who carried him had to pick their steps carefully. At the inn the little cuckoo came out of the clock in the hall and called eleven, half past, and midnight, before the even tramp, tramp of approaching feet made the Little Colonel run to the door for the last time.

"They're comin', mothah," she whispered, with a frightened face, and then ran back to hide her eyes while the men passed up the steps with their unconscious burden. She thought the Major was dead, he lay so white and still. But he had only fainted again on the way, and soon revived enough to answer the doctor's questions, and send word to the Little Colonel that she and Hero had saved his life. "Do you heah that?" she asked of Hero, when they told her what he had said. "The doctah said that if the Majah had lain out on that cold, wet ground till mawnin', without any attention, it surely would have killed him. I'm proud of you, Hero. I'm goin' to get Papa Jack to write a piece about you and send it to the Courier-Journal. How would you like to have yo' name come out in a big American newspapah?"

Several lonely days followed for the Little Colonel. Either her father or mother was constantly with the Major, and sometimes both. They were waiting for his niece to come from Zürich and take him back with her to a hospital where he could have better care than in the little inn in Zug.

It greatly worried the old man that he should be the cause of disarranging their plans and delaying their journey. He urged them to go on and leave him, but they would not consent. Sometimes the Little Colonel slipped into the room with a bunch of Alpine roses or a cluster of edelweiss that she had bought from some peasant. Sometimes she sat beside him for a few minutes, but most of her time was spent with Hero, wandering up and down beside the lake, feeding the swans or watching the little steamboats come and go. She had forgotten her fear of the bottom dropping out of the town.

One evening, just at sunset, the Major sent for her. "I go to Zürich in the morning," he said, holding out his hand as she came into the room. "I wanted to say good-bye while I have the time and strength. We expect to leave very early to-morrow, probably before you are awake."

His couch was drawn up by the window, through which the shimmering lake shone in the sunset like rosy mother-of-pearl. Far up the mountain sounded the faint tinkling of goat-bells, and the clear, sweet yodelling of a peasant, on his homeward way. At intervals, the deep tolling of the bell of St. Oswald floated out across the water.

"When the snow falls," he said, after a long pause, "I shall be far away from here. They tell me that at the hospital where I am going, I shall find a cure. But I know." He pointed to an hour-glass on the table beside him. "See! the sand has nearly run its course. The hour will soon be done. It is so with me. I have felt it for a long time."

Lloyd looked up, startled. He went on slowly.

"I cannot take Hero with me to the hospital, so I shall leave him behind with some one who will care for him and love him, perhaps even better than I have done." He held out his hand to the dog.

"Come, Hero, my dear old comrade, come bid thy master farewell." Fumbling under his pillow as he spoke, he took out a small leather case, and, opening it, held up a medal. It was the medal that had been given him for bravery on the field of battle.

"It is my one treasure!" murmured the old soldier, turning it fondly, as it lay in his palm. "I have no family to whom I can leave it as an heirloom, but thou hast twice earned the right to wear it. I have no fear but that thou wilt always be true to the Red Cross and thy name of Hero, so thou shalt wear thy country's medal to thy grave."

He fastened the medal to Hero's collar, then, with the dog's great head pressed fondly against him, he began talking to him softly and gently in French. Lloyd could not understand, but the sight of the gray-haired old soldier taking his last leave of his faithful friend brought the tears to her eyes.

She tried to describe the scene to her mother, afterward.

"Oh, it was so pitiful!" she exclaimed. "It neahly broke my heart. Then he called me to him and said that because I was like his little Christine, he knew that I would be good to Hero, and he asked me to take him back to America with me. I promised that I would. Then he put Hero's paw in my hand, and said, 'Hero, I give thee to thy little mistress. Protect and guard her always, as she will love and care for thee.' It was awfully solemn, almost like some kind of blessing.

"Then he lay back on the pillows as if he was too tiahed to say anothah word. I tried to thank him, but I was so surprised and glad that Hero was mine, and yet so sorry to say good-bye to the Majah, that the right words wouldn't come. I just began to cry again. But I am suah the Majah undahstood. He patted my hand and smoothed my hair and said things in French that sounded as if he was tryin' to comfort me. Aftah awhile I remembahed that we had been there a long time, and ought to go, so I kissed him good-bye, and Hero and I went out, leavin' the doah open as he told us. He watched us all the way down the hall. When I turned at the stairway to look back, he was still watchin'. He smiled and waved his hand, but the way he smiled made me feel worse than evah, it was so sad."

Mr. Sherman went with the Major next morning, when he was taken to Zürich. Lloyd was asleep when they left the inn, so the last remembrance she had of the Major was the way he looked as he lay on his couch in the sunset, smiling, and waving his hand to her. When Christmastide came, it was as he said. He was with his little Christine.

"I can hardly keep from crying whenever I think of him," Lloyd wrote to Betty. "It was so pitiful, his giving up everything in the world that he cared for, and going off to the hospital to wait there alone for his hour-glass to run out. Hero seems to miss him, but I think he understands that he belongs to me now. I can scarcely believe that he is really mine, and that I may take him back to America with me. He is the best thing that the wonder-ball has given me, or ever can give me.

"To-morrow we start to Lucerne to see the Lion in the rocks, and from there we go to Paris. Only a little while now, and we shall all be together. I can hardly wait for you to see my lovely St. Bernard with his Red Cross of Geneva, and the medal that he has earned the right to wear."

IN TOURS

A dozen times between Paris and Tours the Little Colonel turned from the car window to smile at her mother, and say with a wriggle of impatience, "Oh, I can't wait to get there! Won't Betty and Eugenia be surprised to see us two whole days earlier than they expected!"

"But you mustn't count too much on seeing them at the hotel the minute we arrive," her mother cautioned her. "You know Cousin Carl wrote that they were making excursions every day to the old châteaux near there, and I think it quite probable they will be away. So don't set your heart on seeing them before to-morrow night. Some of those trips take two days."

Lloyd turned to the window again and tried to busy herself with the scenes flying past: the peasant women with handkerchiefs over their heads, and the men in blue cotton blouses and wooden shoes at work in the fields; the lime-trees and the vineyards, the milk-carts that dogs helped to draw. It was all as Joyce had described it to her, and she pinched herself to make sure that she was awake, and actually in France, speeding along toward the Gate of the Giant Scissors, and all the delightful foreign experience that Joyce had talked about. She had dreamed many day-dreams about this journey, but the thought that was giving her most pleasure now was not that these dreams were at last coming true, but that in a very short time she would be face to face with Betty and Eugenia.

It was noon when they reached Tours, and went rattling up to the Hotel Bordeaux in the big omnibus. At first Lloyd was disposed to find fault with the quaint, old-fashioned hotel which Cousin Carl had chosen as their meeting-place. It had no conveniences like the modern ones to which she had been accustomed. There was not even an elevator in it. She looked in dismay at the steep, spiral stairway, winding around and around in the end of the hall, like the steps in the tower of a lighthouse. On a side table in the hall, several long rows of candles, with snuffers, suggested the kind of light they would have in their bedrooms.

But everything was spotlessly clean, and the landlady and her daughter came out to meet them with an air of giving them a welcome home, which extended even to the dog. After their hospitable reception of Hero, Lloyd had no more fault to find. She knew that at no modern hotel would he have been treated so considerately and given the liberty of the house. Since he was not banished to the courtyard or turned over to a porter's care, she was willing to climb a dozen spiral stairways, or grope her way through the semi-darkness of a candle-lighted bedroom every night while they were in France, for the sake of having Hero free to come and go as he pleased.

"Come on!" she cried, gaily, to her mother, as a porter with a trunk on his shoulder led the way up the spiral stairs. "It makes me think of the old song you used to sing me about the spidah and the fly, 'The way into my pahlah is up a winding stair.' Nobody but a circus acrobat could run up the whole flight without getting dizzy. It's a good thing we are only goin' to the next floah."

She ran around several circles of steps, and then paused to look back at her mother, who was waiting for Mr. Sherman's helping arm. "The elephant now goes round and round when the band begins to play," quoted Lloyd, looking down on them, her face dimpling with laughter.

"Look out!" piped a shrill voice far above her. "I'm coming!" Lloyd gave a hasty glance upward to the top floor, and drew back against the wall. For down the banister, with the speed of a runaway engine, came sliding a small bare-legged boy. Around and around the dizzy spiral he went, hugging the railing closely, and bringing up with a tremendous bump against the newel post at the bottom.

"Hullo!" he said, coolly, looking up at the Little Colonel.

"It's Henny!" she exclaimed, in amazement. "Henderson Sattawhite! Of all people! How did you get heah?"

But the boy had no time to waste in talking. He stuck his thumb in his mouth, looked at her an instant, and then, climbing down from the banister, started to the top of the stairs as fast as his short legs could carry him, for another downward spin.

Lloyd waited for her mother to come up to the step on which she stood, and then said, with a look of concern, "Do you suppose they are all heah, 'Fido' an' all of them? And that Howl will follow me around as he did on shipboard, beggin' for stories? It will spoil all my fun with the girls if he does."

"'Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you,'" said her father, playfully pinching her cheek. "You'll find it easier to escape persecution on land than on shipboard. Henny didn't seem at all anxious to renew his acquaintance with you. He evidently finds sliding down bannisters more to his taste. Maybe Howell has found something equally interesting."

"I certainly hope so," said Lloyd, running on to their rooms at the end of the hall. The casement window in her room looked out over a broad bouleyard, down the middle of which went a double row of trees, shading a strip of grass, where benches were set at intervals.

Lloyd leaned out to look and listen. A company of soldiers was marching up the street in the gay red and blue of their French uniforms, to the music of a band. A group of girls from a convent school passed by. Then some nuns. She stood there a long time, finding the panorama that passed her window so interesting that she forgot how time was passing, until her mother called to her that they were going down to lunch.

"I like it heah, evah so much," she announced, as she followed her father and mother into the dining-room. "Did you ask in the office, Papa Jack, when the girls would be back?"

"Yes, they have gone to Amboise. They will be home before dark. I am sorry you missed taking that trip with them, Lloyd. It is one of the most interesting châteaux around here in my opinion. Mary, Queen of Scots, went there a bride. There she was forced to watch the Hugenots being thrown over into the river. Leonardo da Vinci is buried there, and Charles VIII. was killed there by bumping his head against a low doorway."

"Oh, deah!" sighed the Little Colonel, "my head is all in a tangle. There's so many spots to remembah. Every time you turn around you bump into something you ought to remembah because some great man was bawn there, or died there, or did something wondahful there. It would be lots easiah for travellers in Europe if there wasn't so many monuments to smaht people. Who must I remembah in Tours?"

"Balzac," said her father, laughing. "The great French novelist. But that will not be hard. There is a statue of him on one of the principal streets, and after you have passed him every day for a week, you will think of him as an old acquaintance. Then this is the scene of one of Scott's novels—'Quentin Durward.' And the good St. Martin lived here. There is a church to his memory. He is the patron saint of the place. At the châteaux you will get into a tangle of history, for their chief interest is their associations with the old court life."

"Where is Hero?" asked Mrs. Sherman, suddenly changing the conversation.

"He's in the pahlah, stretched out on a rug," answered Lloyd. "It's cool and quiet in there with the blinds down. The landlady's daughtah said no one went in there often, in the middle of the day, so nobody would disturb him, and he'd not disturb anybody. He's all tiahed out, comin' so far on the cars. May I go walkin' with him aftah awhile, mothah?"

Mrs. Sherman looked at her husband, questioningly. "Oh, it's perfectly safe," he answered. "She could go alone here as well as in Lloydsboro Valley, and with Hero she could have nothing to fear."

"I want you to rest awhile first," said Mrs. Sherman. "At four o'clock you may go."

Leaving Hero comfortably stretched out asleep in the parlour, Lloyd went back to her room. She lay down for a few minutes across the bed and closed her eyes. But she could not sleep with so many interesting sights in the street below. Presently she tiptoed to the window, and sat looking out until she heard her mother moving around in the next room. She knew then that she had had her nap and was unpacking the trunks.

"Mothah," called Lloyd, "I want to put on my prettiest white embroidered dress and my rosebud sash, because I'll meet Cousin Carl and the girls to-night."

"That is just what I have unpacked for you," said her mother. "Come in and I'll help you dress."

Half an hour later it was a very fresh and dainty picture that smiled back at Lloyd from the mirror of her dressing-table. She shook out her crisp white skirts, gave the rosebud sash an admiring pat, and turned her head for another view of the big leghorn hat with its stylish rosettes of white chiffon. Then she started down the hall toward the spiral stairway. It was a narrow hall with several cross passages, and at one of them she paused, wondering if it did not lead to Eugenia's and Betty's rooms.

To her speechless surprise, a door popped open and a cupful of water was dashed full in her face. Spluttering and angry, she drew back in time to avoid another cupful, which came flying through the transom above the same door. Retreating still farther down the passage, and wiping her face as she went, she kept her gaze on the door, walking backward in order to do so.

Another cupful came splashing out into the hall through the transom. A boy, tiptoeing up to the door, dodged back so quickly that not a drop touched him; then with a long squirt gun that he carried, he knelt before the keyhole and sent a stream of water squirting through it. It was Howell.

There was a scream from the bedroom, Fidelia's voice. "Stop that, you hateful boy! I'll tell mamma! You've nearly put my eye out."

A muffled giggle and a scamper of feet down the hall was the only answer. Fidelia threw open the door and looked out, a water pitcher in her hand. She stopped in amazement at sight of the Little Colonel, who was waiting for a chance to dodge down the hall past the dangerous door, into the main passage.

"For mercy sakes!" exclaimed Fidelia. "When did you come?"

"In time fo' yoah watah fight," answered the indignant Little Colonel, shaking out her wet handkerchief. She was thoroughly provoked, for the front of her fresh white dress was drenched, and the dainty rosebud sash streaked with water.

Fidelia laughed. "You don't mean to say that you caught the ducking I meant for Howl!" she exclaimed. "Well, if that isn't a joke! It's the funniest thing I ever heard of!" Putting the pitcher on the floor and clasping her hands to her sides, she laughed until she had to lean against the wall.

"It's moah bad mannahs than a joke!" retorted Lloyd, angered more by the laugh than she had been by the wetting. "A girl as old as you oughtn't to go travellin' till you know how to behave yo'self in a hotel. I don't wondah that wherevah you go people say, 'Oh, those dreadful American children!'"

"It isn't so! They don't say it!" snapped Fidelia. "I've got just as good manners as you have, anyhow, and I'll throw this whole pitcher of water on you if you say another word." She caught it up threateningly.

"You just dare!" cried the Little Colonel, her eyes flashing and her cheeks flushing. Not for years had she been so angry. She wanted to scream and pull Fidelia's hair with savage fingers. She wanted to bump her head against the wall, again and again. But with an effort so great that it made her tremble, she controlled herself, and stood looking steadily at Fidelia without a word.

"I mustn't speak," she kept saying desperately to herself. "I mustn't speak, or my tempah will get away with me. I might claw her eyes out. I wish I could! Oh, I wish I could!" Her teeth were set tightly together, and her hands were clenched.

Fidelia met her angry gaze unflinchingly for an instant, and then, with a contemptuous "pooh!" raised the pitcher and gave it a lurch forward. It was so heavy that it turned in her hands, and instead of drenching Lloyd, its contents deluged Fanchette, who suddenly came out of the door beside Lloyd, with the thousand dollar poodle in her arms.

Poor Beauty gave an injured yelp, and Fidelia drew back and slammed the door, locking it hastily. She knew that the maid would hurry to her mistress while he was still shivering, and that there would be an uncomfortable account to settle by and by.

Howell, who had crept up to watch the fuss, doubled himself with laughter. It amused him even more than it had Fidelia that he had escaped the water, and Lloyd had caught it in his stead. Lloyd swept past him without a word, and ran to her mother's room so angry that she could not keep the tears back while telling her grievance.

"See what that horrid Sattawhite girl has done!" she cried, holding out her limp wet skirts, and streaked sash, with an expression of disgust. I just despise her!"

"It was an accident, was it not?" asked Mrs. Sherman.

"Oh, she didn't know she was throwing the watah on me, when she pitched it out, but she was glad that it happened to hit me. She didn't even say 'excuse me,' let alone say that she was sorry. And she laughed and held on to her sides, and laughed again, and said, 'oh, what a joke,' and that it was the funniest thing that she evah saw. I think her mothah ought to know what bad mannahs she's got. Somebody ought to tell her. I told Fidelia what I thought of her, and I'll nevah speak to her again! So there!"

Mrs. Sherman listened sympathetically to her tale of woe, but as she unbuttoned the wet dress, and Lloyd still stormed on, she sighed as if to herself, "Poor Fidelia!"

"Why, mothah," said Lloyd, in an aggrieved tone, "I didn't s'pose that you'd take her part against me."

"Stop and think a minute, little daughter," said Mrs. Sherman, opening her trunk to take out another white dress. Lloyd was working herself up into a white heat. "Put yourself in Fidelia's place, and think how she has always been left to the care of servants, or of a governess who neglected her. Think how much help you have had in trying to control your temper, and how little you have had to provoke it. Suppose you had Howell and Henderson always tagging after you to tease and annoy you, and that I had always been too busy with my own affairs to take any interest in you, except to punish you when I was exasperated by the tales that you told of each other. Wouldn't that have made a difference in your manners?"

"Y-yes," acknowledged Lloyd, slowly. Then, after a moment's silence, she broke out again. "I might have forgiven her if only she hadn't laughed at me. Whenevah I think of that I want to shake her. If I live to be a hundred yeahs old, I can nevah think of Fidelia Sattawhite, without remembahin' the mean little way she laughed!"

"What kind of a memory are you leaving behind you?" suggested Mrs. Sherman, touching the little ring on Lloyd's finger that had been her talisman since the house party. "Will it be a Road of the Loving Heart?"

Lloyd hesitated. "No," she acknowledged, frankly. "Of co'se when I stop to think, I do want to leave that kind of a memory for everybody. I'd hate to think that when I died, there'd be even one person who had cause to say ugly things about me, even Fidelia. But just now, mothah, honestly when I remembah how she laughed, I feel that I must be as mean to her as she is to me. I can't help it."

Mrs. Sherman made no answer, but turned to her own dressing, and presently Lloyd kissed her, and went slowly down-stairs to find Hero. He was no longer dreaming in peace. Two restless boys cooped up in the narrow limits of the hotel, and burning with a desire to be amused, had discovered him through the crack of the door, and immediately pounced upon him.

"Aw, ain't he nice!" exclaimed Henny, stroking the shaggy back with a dirty little hand. Howl felt in his blouse, hoping to find some crumb left of the stock of provisions stored away at lunch-time.

"Feel there, Henny," he commanded, backing up to his little brother, and humping his shoulders. "Ain't that a cooky slipped around to the back of my blouse? Put your hand up and feel."

Henny obligingly explored the back of his brother's blouse, and fished out the last cooky, which they fed to Hero.

"Wisht we had some more," said Howell, as the cake disappeared. "Henny, you go up and see if you can't hook some of Beauty's biscuit."

"Naw! I don't want to. I want to play with the dog," answered Henny, "He's big enough to ride on. Stand up, old fellow, and let me get on your back."

"I'll tell you a scheme," cried Howl; "you run up-stairs and get one of mamma's shawl-straps, and we'll fix a harness for him, and make him ride us around the room."

"All right," agreed Henny, trotting out into the hall. At the door he met Lloyd. When she went into the room she found Howell lying on the floor, burrowing his head into the dog's side for a pillow. Hero did not like it, and, shaking himself free, walked across the room and lay down in another place.

Howl promptly followed, and pillowed his head on him again. Hero looked around with an appealing expression in his big, patient eyes, once more got up, crossed the room, and lay down in a corner. Howell followed him like a teasing mosquito.

"Don't bothah him, Howl," said Lloyd. "Don't you see that he doesn't like it?"

"But he makes such a nice, soft pillow," said the boy, once more burrowing his hard little head into Hero's ribs.

"He might snap at you if you tease him too much. I nevah saw him do it to any one, but nobody has evah teased him since he belonged to me."

"Is he your dog?" asked Howl, in surprise.

"Yes," answered Lloyd, proudly. "He saved my life one time, and his mastah's anothah. And that medal on his collah was one that was given by France to his mastah fo' bravery, and the Majah gave it to him because he said that Hero had twice earned the right to wear it."

"Tell about it," demanded Howl, scenting a story. "How did he—" His question was stopped in the middle by Hero, who, determined to be no longer used as a pillow, stood up and gave himself a mighty shake. Walking over to the sofa piled with cushions, he took one in his mouth, and carrying it back to Howl dropped it at his feet as if to say, "There! Use that! I am no sofa pillow." That done he stretched himself out again in the farthest corner of the room, and laid his head on his paws with a sigh of relief.

"Oh! Oh!" cried the Little Colonel. "Did you evah see anything so sma'ht as that in all yo' life? It's the brightest thing I evah saw a dog do. He thought it all out, just like a person. I wish Papa Jack could have seen him do it. I'm goin' to treat you to something nice fo' that, Hero. Wait till I run back up-stairs and get my purse."

Anxious to make him do something else interesting, Howl still followed the dog. He tickled his paws, turned his ears back and blew in them and blindfolded him with a dirty handkerchief.

Lloyd was gone longer than she intended, for she could not find her purse for several minutes, and she stopped to tell her mother of Hero's performance with the sofa pillow. When she went into the parlour again, both boys were kneeling beside the dog. Their backs were toward the door, Henderson had brought the shawl-strap, and they were using it for the further discomfort of the patient old St. Bernard.

"Here, Henny, you sit on his head," commanded Howl, "and I'll buckle his hind feet to his fore feet, so that when he tries to walk he'll wabble around and tip over. Won't that be funny?"

"Stop!" demanded Lloyd. "Don't you do that, Howl Sattawhite! I've told you enough times to stop teasing my dog."

Howl only giggled in reply and drew the buckle tighter. There was a quick yelp of pain, and Hero, trying to pull away found himself fast by the foot.

Before Howl could rise from his knees, the Little Colonel had darted across the room, and seizing him by the shoulders, shook him till his teeth chattered.

"There!" she said, giving him a final shake as she pushed him away. "Don't you evah lay a fingah on that dog again, as long as you live. If you do you'll be sorry. I'll do something awful to you!"

For the second time that afternoon her face was white with anger. Her eyes flashed so threateningly that Howl backed up against the wall, thoroughly frightened. Releasing Hero from the strap, she led him out of the room, and, with her hand laid protectingly on his collar, marched him out into the street.

"Those tawmentin' Sattawhites!" she grumbled, under her breath. "I wish they were all shut up in jail, every one of them!"

But her anger died out as she walked on in the bright sunshine, watching the strange scenes around her with eager eyes. More than one head turned admiringly, as the daintily dressed little girl and the great St. Bernard passed slowly down the broad boulevard. It seemed as if all the nurses and babies in Touraine were out for an airing on the grass where the benches stood, between the long double rows of trees.

Once Lloyd stopped to peep through a doorway set in a high stone wall. Within the enclosure a group of girls, in the dark uniforms of a charity school, walked sedately around, arm in arm, under the watchful eyes of the attendant nuns. Then some soldiers passed on foot, and a little while after, some more dashed by on horseback, and she remembered that Tours was the headquarters of the Ninth Army corps, and that she might expect to meet them often.

Not till the tolling of the great cathedral bell reminded her that it was time to go back to the hotel, did she think again of Howl and Kenny and Fidelia. By that time her walk had put her into such a pleasant frame of mind, that she could think of them without annoyance.