He was not a quarrelsome dog generally, but, as I heard afterwards, Nap was an old antagonist; they had once fallen out about Peter, and had never been friends since.
I found the little brown girl sitting in the porch with her arms round the retriever's neck; she was kissing his black face, and begging him to forget the insult he had received from that horrid Barton dog.
'Poor old Tinker is not horrid at all, I assure you,' I said, laughing; 'he is a dear fellow, and I am already very fond of him.' 'But he nearly killed Nap,' she returned, with a little frown; 'he is worse than a savage, for he has no notion of hospitality.

Nap and I came to call,' rising with an air of great dignity.

'I suppose you are Miss Garston.

I am Lady Betty.' I had never heard of such a person in Heathfield; but of course Uncle Max would enlighten me.

As I looked at her more closely I saw my mistake in thinking she was a child; little brown thing as she was, she was fully grown up, and, though not in the least pretty, had a bright piquant face, a _nest retrousse_, and a pair of mischievous eyes.
She was dressed rather extravagantly in a brown velvet walking-dress, with an absurd little hat, that would have fitted a child, on the top of her dark wavy hair; she only wanted a touch of red about her to look like a magnified robin-redbreast.
'Well,' she said impatiently, as I hesitated a moment in my surprise, 'I have told you we have come for a call, Nap and I; but if you are going out--' 'Oh, that is not the least consequence,' I returned, waking up to a sense of my duty.