ad from the Bluffs down to the village.
Soon a shout came from the same direction, and going toward the wall, I
saw Mr. Vandeveer struggling along, his great St. Bernard Jupiter, prize
winner in a recent show and but lately released from winter confinement,
bounding around and over him to such an extent that the spruce New
Yorker, who had the reputation of always being on dress parade from the
moment that he left bed until he returned to it in hand-embroidered pink
silk pajamas, was not only covered with abundant April mud, but could
hardly keep his footing.

At the moment I spied the pair, a great brindled cat, who sometimes
ventures on the place, in spite of all the attentions paid her by the
beagles, and who had been watching sparrows in the barnyard, sprang to
the wall. Zip! There was a rush, a snarl, a hiss, and a smash! Dog and
what had been cat crashed through the sash of my Dahlia frame, and in
the rebound ploughed into the soft earth that held the carnations.

The next minute Mr. Vandeveer absolutely leaped over the wall, and
seeing the dog, apparently in the midst of the broken glass, turned
almost apoplectic, shouting, "Ah, his legs will be cut; he'll be ruined,
and Julie will never forgive me! He's her best dog and cost $3000 spot
cash! Get him out, somebody, why don't you? What business have people
to put such dangerous skylights near a public road?"

Meanwhile, as wrath arose in my throat and formed ugly words, Jupiter, a
great friend of ours, who has had more comfortable meals in our kitchen
during the winter than the careless kennel men would have wished to be
known, sprang toward me with well-meant, if rough, caresses,--evidently
the few scratches he had amounted to nothing. I forgave him the cat
cheerfully, but my poor carnations! They do not belong to the grovelling
tribe of herbs that bend and refuse to break like portulaca, chickweed,
and pusley the accursed. Fortunately, just then, a scene of the past
year, which had come to me by report, floated across my vision. Our
young hounds, Bob and Pete, in the heat of undisciplined rat-catching
(for these dogs when young and unbroken will chase anything that runs),
completely undermined the Vandeveers' mushroom bed, the door of the pit
having been left open!

When Mr. Vandeveer recovered himself, he began profuse apologies. Would
"send the glazier down immediately"--"so sorry to spoil such lovely
young onions and spinach!"

"What! not early vegetables