were carelessly left open, he had only to station himself in
front of it, and to gently tumble them over on the grass if they
attempted to pass through it. He had never hurt them, and their mother
thought that they could not be under any better protection than that of
good old faithful "Cham."

But Hetty, who was seven years old, and Rudolph, who was nine, worried
the dog terribly, and caused him to wear almost a perpetual scowl of
anxiety upon his face. He evidently looked upon them as not old enough
to be trusted by themselves, and it was a serious annoyance to him that
they were too big to be rolled over on the grass, and so kept within the
limits of the garden.

One lovely summer morning Hetty was missing. She had run away with a
beautiful ripe plum, which her cousin Francis had picked in order to
show her that the bloom upon it was exactly the color of old "Greylock"
in the distance. So she climbed the nearest hill, to compare the colors
of the mountain and the plum. Looking away over the valley, the child
saw too much beauty all at once. Clasping her hands behind her, she took
in a long sweet breath of morning air, and did not know what it was that
filled her whole soul with joy. She laughed aloud up at the clear sky,
and spreading her arms as if they were the wings of a bird, she ran down
the hill-side. Oh, there were so many robins! And butterflies flew
around her in little clouds. The fields were like fairy-land, they were
so full of flowers. She picked baby daisies, and put them inside of the
wild-carrot heads, not in blossom yet, which grew in the shape of nests.
When she climbed over a stone wall to the road, a squirrel ran across
her path, into the woods on the opposite side. "There!" she whispered,
softly, "maybe I can find his hole." And she ran after him.

It was a great pity that Champion had so much to do that morning. When
dinner was ready, and no Hetty appeared, Rudy called the dog, and asked,
"Cham, where's Hetty?"

Champion whined piteously, and looked first down the road, then up at
Rudy, and then down the road again.

"Come and eat some dinner, Rudy," said his mother, shading her eyes, and
looking anxiously toward the woods. "Hetty will feel hungry, and come
home soon now." But she looked proudly after Rudy when he clapped his
hat on with a thump, and said, "Never you mind about me, mother; I'll
eat more if I find Het first," and went racing after Champion, who
bounded over the ground as if