and shellac.  It was to be remarked that these dogs were of no distinguishable species or breed, yet they were unmistakably dogs; the dullest must have recognized them as such at a glance, which was, perhaps, enough.  It was a hideous house, important-looking, cold, yet harshly aggressive, a house whose exterior provoked a shuddering guess of the brass lambrequins and plush fringes within; a solid house, obviously—­ nay, blatantly—­the residence of the principal citizen, whom it had grown to resemble, as is the impish habit of houses; and it sat in the middle of its flat acre of snowy lawn like a rich, fat man enraged and sitting straight up in bed to swear.

And yet there was one charming thing about this ugly house.  Some workmen were enclosing a large side porch with heavy canvas, evidently for festal purposes.  Looking out from between two strips of the canvas was the rosy and delicate face of a pretty girl, smiling upon Eugene Bantry as he passed.  It was an obviously pretty face, all the youth and prettiness there for your very first glance; elaborately pretty, like the splendid profusion of hair about and above it—­amber-colored hair, upon which so much time had been spent that a circle of large, round curls rose above the mass of it like golden bubbles tipping a coronet.

The girl’s fingers were pressed thoughtfully against her chin as Eugene strode into view; immediately her eyes widened and brightened.  He swung along the fence with the handsomest appearance of unconsciousness, until he reached a point nearly opposite her.  Then he turned his head, as if haphazardly, and met her eyes.  At once she threw out her hand towards him, waving him a greeting—­a gesture which, as her fingers had been near her lips, was a little like throwing a kiss.  He crooked an elbow and with a one-two-three military movement removed his small-brimmed hat, extended it to full arm’s-length at the shoulder-level, returned it to his head with Life-Guard precision.  This was also new to Canaan.  He was letting Mamie Pike have it all at once.

The impression was as large as he could have desired.  She remained at the opening in the canvas and watched him until he wagged his shoulders round the next corner and disappeared into a cross street.  As for Eugene, he was calm with a great calm, and very red.

He had not covered a great distance, however, before his gravity was replaced by his former smiling look of the landed gentleman amused by the innocent pastimes of the peasants, though there was no one in sight except a woman sweeping some snow from the front steps of a cottage, and she, not perceiving him, retired in-doors without knowing her loss.  He had come to a thinly built part of the town, the perfect quiet of which made the sound he heard as he opened the picket gate of his own home all the more startling.  It was a scream—­loud, frantic, and terror-stricken.

Eugene stopped, with the gate half open.