Part 9 (2/2)

At such times, he proved himself the ray kitten, hom he was ordinarily on very comfortable terms Peter Grimm was the one creature on the Place whom Lady feared On the day after her arrival, she essayed to worry the haughty catkin And, a second later, the puppy was nursing a brace of deep red scratches at the tip of her inquiring black nostrils

Thereafter, she gave Peter Grie of this dread byforays on Lady's supper dish

But, ever, Lad would swoop down upon the ly back on her haunches; and would harry the indignant cat up the nearest tree; herding her there until Lady had licked the dish clean

Lad went further, in his fealty to the puppy Sacrificing his own regal dignity, he would romp with her, at times when it would have been far rowling assaults on his food; a aside while she annexed his supper's choicest bits

He endured, too, her occasional flurries of hot terievance against life by flying at hi ruff and jaws asnarl Her keen littleinto his ears or his paws, in one of these rage-gusts But he did not resent the pain or the indignity by soback out of harer and she strove to ain, Lad was inordinately happy

To both the Mistress and the Master, from the very outset, it was plain that Lady was not in any way such a dog as their beloved Lad She was as teer nerves, a swirlingly uncertain temper that was scarce atoned for by her charm and lovableness; and she lacked Lad's stanchness and elusive semi-human quality The tere as different in nature as it is possible for a couple of well-brought-up thoroughbred collies to be And the huo out to Lady as to Lad Still, she was an ideal pet, in many ways And, Lad's utter devotion to her was a full set of credentials, by itself

Autuhosts; or, rather, into ales alternately shrieked and roared The fire-blue lake was a sheet of leaden ice, twenty inches thick The fields showed sere and grayly lifeless in the patches between sodden snoathes Nature had flown south, with the birds; leaving the northern world a lifeless and empty husk, as deserted as last summer's robin-nests

Lady, in these drearPlace Froy The indeterold-and-white coat of raceful, with its longfrom clownish puppyhood into the charm of youth By the tih the forests' lingering snow-pall, she had lost her adolescent gawkiness and was a slenderly beautiful young collie; sht of bone, as she remained to the day of her death, but with a slimness which carried with it a hint of lithe power and speed and endurance

It was in the early spring that the Master pro-quarters in the tool-house; and began to let her spend more anda perfect housedog Fastidious, quick to learn, she adapted herself almost at once to indoor life And Lad was overjoyed at her admission to the domain where until now he had ruled alone Personally, and with the gravity of an old-world host, he conducted her fro-place in his cherished ”cave,” under the piano, in the music room the spot of all others dearest to him

But it was dim and cheerless, under the piano; or so Lady seeo there for an instant She preferred the disreputable grizzly-bear rug in front of the living roo his loved cave, Lad used to lie on this rug at her side; well content when she edged hies

All winter, Lady's sleeping quarters had been the tool-house in the back garden, behind the stables Here, on a sweet-ss, she had been comfortable and wholly satisfied But, at once, on her promotion, she appeared to look upon the once-hoard the tumbledown shack where he had spent the days of his poverty

She avoided the tool-house; and evenclose to it There is no h-bred dog And, to Lady, the tool-house evidently represented a hu phase of her outlived past

Yet, she was foredooo back to the loathed abode And her return befell in this way:

In the Master's study was soly wonderful object on earth This was a stuffed As, on a papier-le should have fascinated Lady s or other chase-trophies, in the various downstairs rooms, only Lady herself could have told But she could not keep her eyes off of it Tiptoeing to the study door, she used to stand for half an hour at a tiiant bird

Once, in a moment of audacity, she made a playful little rush at it

Before the Master could intervene, Lad had dashed between her and the sacred trophy; and had shouldered her gently but withher little swirl of temper at the interference

The Master called her back into the study Taking her up to the eagle, he pointed at it, and said, with slow emphasis:

”Lady! Let it ALONE! Let--it--ALONE!”

She understood For, from babyhood, she had learned, by daily practice, to understand and interpret the hu bird Snarling slightly at Lad, as she passed him in the doorway, she stalked out of the roolad I happened to be here when she went for the eagle,” said the Master, at lunch that day ”If I hadn't, she ht have tackled it soood lively collie pup could put that bit of taxidermy out of commission in less than five seconds

She knows, now, she ly; his lore on the subject being bounded by his experiences in teaching Lad the sis to whoh to fix a lesson in his uncannily wise brain for life Lady was not As the Master soon had occasion to learn

Late one afternoon, a week afterward, the Mistress had set forth on a round of neighborhood calls She had gone in the car; and had taken Lad along The Master, being busy and abhorring calls, had stayed at ho in the cool lower hall

A few minutes before the Mistress was due to return for dinner, a whiff of acrid smoke afted to the man's nostrils