"Gyp, my dear," John Westley untangled long arms from around his neck, "here's a twin for you. Jerry, this boy is my nephew Graham--he's not nearly as grown-up as he looks. And this is Tibby!"
Jerry flashed a smile. They seemed to her--this awkward, thin, dark-skinned girl whom Uncle Johnny had called Gyp, the tall, roguish-faced boy, and little Tibby, whose straight braids were black like Gyp's and whose eyes were violet-blue--more wonderful than anything she had seen along the way; they were, indeed, the "best of all."
"Oh," she stammered, in a laughing, excited way, "it's just wonderful to--really--be--be here." Before her glowing enthusiasm the children's prejudice melted in a twinkling. Gyp held out her hand with a friendly gesture and Pepperpot, as though he understood everything that was happening, stuck his head out from the shelter of Jerry's arm and thrust his paw into Gyp's welcoming clasp.
Everyone laughed--Graham and Tibby uproariously.
"Goodness _me_--a _dog_!" Mrs. Westley cried, with a startled glance toward John Westley.
"Let him down," commanded Graham, as though he and Jerry were old friends. Jerry put Pepperpot down and the four children leaned over him. Promptly Pepperpot stood on his hind legs and executed a merry dance.
"He cut through the woods and headed us off, miles away from the Notch--we couldn't do anything else but bring him along," Uncle Johnny whispered to Mrs. Westley under cover of the children's laughter. "For Heaven's sake, Mary, let him stay."
There had been for years a very fixed rule in the Westley household that dogs were "not allowed." "They bring their dirty feet and their greasy bones and things on the rugs and the chairs," was the standing complaint, though Mrs. Westley had never minded telltale marks from muddy little shoes nor the imprint of sticky fingers on satin upholstery; nor had she ever allowed painters to gloss over the initials that Graham had carved with his first jackknife on one of the broad window-sills of the library. "When he's a grown man and away from the nest--I'll have _that_," she had explained.
"I don't know what Mrs. Hicks will say," she answered rather helplessly, knowing, as she watched the young people, that she would not have the heart to bar Pepper from their midst.