The next morning there came to Cobhurst a man, bringing a black setter and a verbal message from Miss Bannister to the effect that if Mr. Haverley would tie up the dog and feed him himself for two or three days and be kind to him, she had no doubt Congo would soon know him as his master.

“Now that is the kind of a girl I like,” said Ralph to his sister.  “She promises to do a thing and she does it, even if the other party is not prompt in stepping forward to attend to his share of the affair.”

There was nothing to say against this, and Miriam said nothing, but contented herself with admiring the dog, which was worthy of all the praise she could give him.  Congo was tied up, and Mike and Mrs. Drane and Cicely, and finally La Fleur, came to look at him and to speak well of him.  When all had gone away but the colored man and the cook, the latter asked why Miss Bannister had been mentioned in connection with this dog.

“’Cause he was her dog,” said Mike.  “She got him when he was a little puppy no bigger nor a cat, an’ you’d a thought, to see her carry him about an’ put him in a little bed an’ kiver him up o’ night an’ talk to him like a human bein’, that she loved him as much as if he’d been a little baby brother; an’ she’s thought all the world of him, straight ‘long until now, an’ she’s gone an’ give him to Mr. Hav’ley.”

La Fleur reflected for a moment.

“Are you sure, Mike,” she asked, “that they are not engaged?”

“I’m dead sartain sure of it,” he said.  “His sister told me so with her own lips.  Givin’ dogs don’t mean nothin’, Mrs. Flower.  If people married all the people they give dogs to, there’d be an awful mix in this world.  Bless my soul, I’d have about eight wives my own self.”

La Fleur smiled at Mike’s philosophy, and applied his information to the comfort of her mind.

“If his sister says they are not engaged,” she thought, “it’s like they are not, but it looks to me as if it were time to take the Bannister pot off the fire.”

La Fleur now retired to a seat under a tree near the kitchen door, and applied her intellect to the consideration of the dinner, and the future of the Drane family and herself.  The present state of affairs suited her admirably.  She could desire no change in it, except that Mr. Haverley should marry Miss Cicely in order to give security to the situation.  For herself, this was the place above all others at which she would like to live, and a mistress such as Miss Cicely, who knew little of domestic affairs, but appreciated everything that was well done, was the mistress she would like to serve.  She would be sorry to leave the good doctor, for whom, as a man of intellect, she had an earnest sympathy, but he did not live in the country, and the Dranes were nearer and dearer to her than he was.  He should not be deserted nor neglected.  If she came to spend the rest of her life on this fine old estate, she would engage for him a good young cook, who would be carefully instructed by her in regard to the peculiarities of his diet, and who should always be under her supervision.  She would get him one from England; she knew of several there who had been her kitchen maids, and she would guarantee that the one she selected would give satisfaction.