Violet Effingham was certainly no puppet.

She was great at dancing,--as perhaps might be a puppet,--but she was great also at archery, great at skating,--and great, too, at hunting.

With reference to that last accomplishment, she and Lady Baldock had had more than one terrible tussle, not always with advantage to the dragon.

"My dear aunt," she had said once during the last winter, "I am going to the meet with George,"-- George was her cousin, Lord Baldock, and was the dragon's son,--"and there, let there be an end of it." "And you will promise me that you will not go further," said the dragon.

"I will promise nothing to-day to any man or to any woman," said Violet.