se you're getting to think him quite your own," he said. "It
certainly does not seem as if he were going to be owned. But what will
mamma say to taking him home with us--eh, little people?"

"I don't think she'll mind," said Persis. "She loves him too--awfully.
And Archie and I are full of plans about how to manage him in London."

"Ah, indeed," said papa. "Well, one of the first things to be done, it
seems to me," he went on, "is to get him a collar," and he drew a yard
measure out of his pocket and measured Bruno's neck. "I am going up to
town to-morrow for two nights," he then told us. "You two can come to
meet me at the station when I come back, with Eliza, of course, and this
fellow, and you shall see what I can get in the way of a collar. I'll
tell mamma the train, and you can all drive home with me."

We thanked papa--it was very kind of him, and we said we'd like to go to
meet him very much. But things seldom turn out as one expects. The day
papa was to come mamma had to go to the little town near the station
herself--something about a washerwoman it was--so she ordered a
carriage, and we drove over with her. We were all at the station
together to meet papa, and when he came he had brought the loveliest
collar for Bruno--with his name on, and ours, and our address in
London!

"_We_ won't risk losing him," papa said.

Then he asked us if we wouldn't rather walk home, and we said we should,
as we had driven there, and mamma didn't mind going back alone. So we
set off, us two and papa. And we were so happy and so sure now of Bruno
being ours, that we didn't notice that papa took the way down the lane
that we had been once before.

We never noticed it, till we were close to the gate of the farm--the
very farm where we had got milk--the very gate where----

And, just as we got up to it, it opened, and a girl, a lady, _the very
one_, came out, not running and jumping, but walking quite quietly. But
when she caught sight of us, of Bruno, and when he caught sight of her!
Oh! He rushed at her, and she threw her arms round him.

"Oh, my Rollo, my own dear naughty Rollo," she called out, and I believe
she was crying. "Have you come back to me at last? Where _have_ you
been?"

And Bruno--_our_ Bruno--went on wagging his tail and rubbing his nose on
her, and pawing at her, just as he had done to us, only _more_!

Persis and I stood stock-still, feeling as if we _couldn't_ bear it.

CHAPTER IV

PAPA was the fi