I knew it! I knew it!" Dorothy, when she heard this, was dumbfounded.

She had rested her defence of her mother and sister on the impossibility of any such visit being admitted.

According to her lights the coming of Colonel Osborne, after all that had been said, would be like the coming of Lucifer himself.

The Colonel was, to her imagination, a horrible roaring lion.

She had no idea that the erratic manoeuvres of such a beast might be milder and more innocent than the wooing of any turtle-dove.