gh the stillness night had left behind, past the doors of sleepers
who were losing the sweetest of the day. So she thought--so we all
think--when some chance gives us precious hours that others are wasting
in stupid sleep. But even _she_ would not have risen but for that
plaintive intermittent wail and a growing construction of a cause for
it--all fanciful perhaps--that her uneasy mind would still be at work
upon. She _must_ find out the story of it. More sleep now was absurd.

Two bolts and a chain--not insuperable obstacles--and she was free of
the side-garden. An early riser--the one she had foreseen, a young
gardener she knew--with an empty basket to hold flowers for the still
sleeping household to refresh the house with in an hour, and its
bed-bound sluggards in two or three, was astir and touched a respectful
cap with some inner misgiving that this unwonted vision was a ghost. But
he showed a fine discipline, and called it "My lady" with presence of
mind. Ghost or no, that was safe! "What _is_ that dog, Oliver?" said the
vision.

The question made all clear. The answer was speculative. "Happen it
might be his lordship's dog that came yesterday--feeling strange in a
strange place belike?"

"No dog came yesterday. Lord Cumberworld hasn't a dog. I _must_ know.
Where is it?"

Oliver was not actor enough not to show that he was concealing
wonderment at the young lady's vehemence. His eyes remained wide open in
token thereof.

"In the stables, by the sound of it, my lady," was his answer.

His lady turned without a word, going straight for the stables; and he
followed when, recollecting him, she looked back to say, "Yes--come!"

Grooms are early risers in a well-kept stable. There is always something
to be done, involving pails, or straps, or cloths, or barrows, or
brushes, even at five in the morning in July. When the young gardener,
running on ahead, jangled at the side-gate yard-bell, more than one pair
of feet was on the move within; and there was the cry of the dog, sure
enough, almost articulate with keen distress about some unknown wrong.

"What _is_ the dog, Archibald?--what _is_ the dog?" The speaker was too
anxious for the answer to frame her question squarely. But the old
Scotch groom understood. "Wha can tell that?" says he. "He's just
stra'ad away from his home, or lost the track of a new maister. They do,
ye ken, even the collies on the hillsides. Will your ladyship see him?"

"Yes--yes! That is