ould she be out? Nero ran back to take an agonized glance at the
motionless knob, leaped frantically to the stairs again--and, at that
moment, the study-door opened. There was a heavy tread; the ecstatic
Nero rushed in between a pair of dignified legs moving toward the great
hall door; he spun wildly about for an instant, and then, with a deep
sigh of satisfaction, settled down on the rug before the study fire. For
there was not a soul in the room.

CHAPTER II.

FOURTEEN YEARS AFTERWARD.

THE house is there still; so is Nero, now an honored old dog frisky only
in his memories. But old as he is in teeth and muscle, he is hardly past
middle-age in the wag of his still bushy tail, and is as young as ever
in happy devotion to his master. Liddy, too, is down stairs, promoted,
but busy as in the days gone by; and the voice of that very bell tinkled
but an hour ago.

Here is the same study; some one within, and the door closed. Opposite,
on the other side of the wide hall, is the parlor, its windows looking
across piazza, sloping lawn, road-way, and field, straight out to the
sparkling lake beyond. Back of the parlor is a sunny sitting-room, its
bay-window framing a pleasant view of flower-garden, apple-orchard, and
grape-arbor--a few straggling bunches clinging to the almost leafless
November vines. And within, throughout the house indeed, floats a
sunny-shady combination of out-door air, with a faint, delightful odor
of open wood-fires. What a quiet, homelike, beautiful place it is!

Let us look into the sitting-room.

A boy, with his back toward the door, mounted upon the end of a big
sofa, his bended knee tightly held between his arms, his head thrust
forward earnestly,--altogether, from the rear view, looking like a
remarkable torso with a modern jacket on,--that's Donald. Near him, on
the sofa, a glowing face with bright brown hair waving back from it, the
chin held in two brownish little hands, and beneath that a mass of dark
red merino, revealing in a meandering, drapery way that its wearer is
half-kneeling, half-sitting,--that's Dorothy.

[Illustration: THE SPARKLING LAKE BEYOND.]

I am obliged to confess it, these two inelegant objects on a very
elegant piece of furniture are the hero and heroine of my story.

Do not imagine, however, that Donald and Dorothy could not, if they
chose to do so, stand before you comely and fair as any girl and boy in
the land. It is merely by accident that we catch thi