ea-time, slanted from over the roof of the red house, and painted
up that small procession--the deep blue frock of little Gyp, the glint of
gold in the chestnut of her hair; the daisy-starred grass; the dark birds
with translucent red dewlaps, and checkered tails and the tulip
background, puce and red and yellow. When she had lured them to the open
gate, little Gyp raised herself, and said:

"Aren't you duffies, dears? Shoo!" And on the tails of the turkeys she
shut the gate. Then she went to where, under the walnut-tree--the one
large tree of that walled garden--a very old Scotch terrier was lying,
and sitting down beside him, began stroking his white muzzle, saying:

"Ossy, Ossy, do you love me?"

Presently, seeing her mother in the porch, she jumped up, and crying out:
"Ossy--Ossy! Walk!" rushed to Gyp and embraced her legs, while the old
Scotch terrier slowly followed.

Thus held prisoner, Gyp watched the dog's approach. Nearly three years
had changed her a little. Her face was softer, and rather more grave,
her form a little fuller, her hair, if anything, darker, and done
differently--instead of waving in wings and being coiled up behind, it
was smoothly gathered round in a soft and lustrous helmet, by which
fashion the shape of her head was better revealed.

"Darling, go and ask Pettance to put a fresh piece of sulphur in Ossy's
water-bowl, and to cut up his meat finer. You can give Hotspur and
Brownie two lumps of sugar each; and then we'll go out." Going down on
her knees in the porch, she parted the old dog's hair, and examined his
eczema, thinking: "I must rub some more of that stuff in to-night. Oh,
ducky, you're not smelling your best! Yes; only--not my face!"

A telegraph-boy was coming from the gate. Gyp opened the missive with
the faint tremor she always felt when Summerhay was not with her.

"Detained; shall be down by last train; need not come up
to-morrow.--BRYAN."

When the boy was gone, she stooped down and stroked the old dog's head.

"Master home all day to-morrow, Ossy--master home!"

A voice from the path said, "Beautiful evenin', ma'am."

The "old scoundrel," Pettance, stiffer in the ankle-joints, with more
lines in his gargoyle's face, fewer stumps in his gargoyle's mouth, more
film over his dark, burning little eyes, was standing before her, and,
behind him, little Gyp, one foot rather before the other, as Gyp had been
wont to stand, waited gravely.

"Oh, Pettance, Mr.