decided that should he live a thousand years, he never would understand
women with their inconsistencies and their peculiar viewpoints. Their
tendernesses in one direction and their complacent cruelties in others.

"Let's go and sit on the steps of that cottage," said Suzanna, pointing
to a small house at the foot of the side garden. Maizie consented, but
Peter preferred not to move. He wished to stay with his dog as long as
possible. In the cottage might be a lady who would look with the same
horror-stricken eyes upon his friend as had Mrs. Graham Woods Bartlett.

So Suzanna and Maizie left him with his dog. They had just ensconced
themselves comfortably on the steps of the cottage when a distressing
accent struck upon their ears, and simultaneously they turned in the
direction of the sound. There on a tiny verandah, almost hidden behind a
large fern growth, a little girl sat on a low chair crying softly and
pathetically as though her small heart were broken. The children stood
for a moment not knowing just what to do. Then Maizie, the same one,
thought Peter satirically (he could see all that went on from his place
beyond) who had suggested his losing his dog on a prairie, went to the
pathetic figure and sitting beside it said in a tremulous low voice,
full of sympathy and pity:

"What's the matter, little girl?"

The one thus addressed took her hands down from her face and looked
around at her questioner. Her eyes were dark, with black lashes, and she
had wonderful, curly hair. When she had finished looking at Maizie,
which was a long moment, she put her hand behind her and produced a
doll, sadly deficient as to features. Indeed, noseless, entirely, and
with one eye gone. But in a very fever of love, she held it to her.

"Are you crying because your doll is broken?" asked Suzanna, now coming
a little closer and standing straight and slim before the child.

"No, she's not broken," said the little girl, "but she's got the
whooping cough and she keeps my father awake nights coughing."

Suzanna instantly responded. "Oh, that's too bad," she said. "Can't your
mother fix her some flaxseed tea?"

Now down once more went the little girl's head upon her knee, and once
more she was shaking with sobs. And at this moment young Graham returned
and in his wake, David.

"David says," began Graham cheerfully to Suzanna and Maizie, "that he
can find room for an extra dog, so you may leave yours. Where's your
brother?"

"H