“Good ole pup!” Dorothy rubbed his smooth, warm head between his ears. “You show your intelligence by using the dictionary as a stepping stone to better things, don’t you, Prof!”
She yawned, closed her book, and promptly went to sleep again herself.
She awoke with a start, to find Mrs. Lawson smiling down at her. Tunbridge was laying the tea-things on a table at the other side of the fire. “Well, my dear,” the lady said, her eyes on the fox terrier, “I see you’ve found a new friend.”
“Oh, yes, isn’t he just too darling? I found him out in the blizzard, he was half frozen and almost starved!” She went on to tell Mrs. Lawson about it.
“I’m afraid I’m not very fond of animals, Janet.” Dorothy noticed that she did not attempt to touch the puppy. “I don’t dislike them, you understand, but somehow they never seem to like me.”
“That’s too bad,” said Dorothy. “I do hope you won’t mind my keeping him—at least until we learn who his owner is?”
Laura Lawson looked doubtful. “Well, I don’t mind. But—this is Doctor Winn’s house, you know, and his decision, after all, is the one that counts. You will have to ask him about keeping the dog, Janet.”
“Is Doctor Winn going to have tea with us, Mrs. Lawson?”
“He most certainly is, my dear. That is, if you ladies will pour him a cup.”
Dorothy glanced up, and beside her stood an old gentleman, very tall and spare, but bowed with the weight of his years. She knew that the scientist was well over eighty. Catching up the fox terrier, she rose to her feet.
“How do you do, Doctor Winn?” She smiled and offered him her hand.
The old gentleman bent over it with courtly grace. “Good afternoon, Miss Janet Jordan. Welcome to Winncote.” Merry gray eyes twinkled at her from behind pince-nez attached to a broad black ribbon. An aristocrat of the old school, Dorothy thought, as she studied his handsome, clean shaven face crisscrossed with the tiny wrinkles of advanced age. She had imagined him to be quite a different sort of person. His next words proved that he read her thoughts.
“You expected to see a musty old fellow, with a long white beard, wearing a smock stained by chemicals, eh?” He chuckled softly. “Now, tell me, young lady, isn’t that so? Though I admit these flannel slacks and old Norfolk jacket are hardly fashionable habiliments when one is taking tea with ladies!”