ing world brooded the solemn hush
of late summer afternoon.

An amber light hung in the sleepy air; touching with gold the fire-blue
lake, the circle of lovingly protecting green hills; the emerald slope
which billowed up from the water-edge to the red-roofed gray house in
its setting of ancient oaks.

On the bare flooring, in the coolest corner of the veranda, two collies
lay sprawled. They were fast asleep; which means that they were ready
to come back to complete wakefulness at the first untoward sound.

Of the two slumbrous collies, one was slenderly graceful of outline;
gold-and-white of hue. She was Lady; imperious and temperamental wisp
of thoroughbred caninity.

The second dog had been crowded out of the shadiest spot of the
veranda, by his mate; so that a part of his burnished mahogany coat was
under the direct glare of the afternoon sun. Shimmering orange tints
blazed back the reflection of the torrid light.

He was Sunnybank Lad; eighty-pound collie; tawny and powerful; with
absurdly tiny white forepaws and with a Soul looking out from his
deep-set dark eyes. Chum and housemate he was to his two human gods;--a
dog, alone of all worshipers, having the privilege of looking on the
face of his gods and of communing with them without the medium of
priest or of prayer.

Lady, only, of the Place's bevy of Little People, refused from earliest
puppyhood to acknowledge Lad's benevolent rulership. She bossed and
teased and pestered him, unmercifully. And Lad not only let her do all
this, but he actually reveled in it. She was his mate. More,--she was
his idol. This idolizing of one mate, by the way, is far less uncommon
among dogs than we mere humans realize.

The summer afternoon hush was split by the whirring chug of a
motor-car; that turned in from the highroad, two hundred yards beyond
the house, and started down through the oak grove, along the winding
driveway. Immediately, Lady was not only awake, but on her feet, and in
motion. A furry gold-white whirlwind, she flashed off of the
vine-shaded veranda and tore at top speed up the hill to meet the
coming car.

No, it was not the Mistress and the Master whose approach stirred the
fiery little collie to lightning activity. Lad knew the purr of the
Place's car and he could distinguish it from any other, as far as his
sensitive ears could catch its sound. But to Lady, all cars were alike;
and all were signals for wild excitement.

Like too many other collie