wice
consecutively. The dietary included four or five staple articles,
with as many as seven or eight different accessories. The bills of
fare at different successive periods were as studiously and exactly
drawn up by the Master as ever a human patient's diet is arranged
by doctors in a hospital.

But of all these things, which kept several people pretty busy--five
or six feeding dishes were scalded and washed nine times a
day; there was a puppy's kitchen and a puppy's larder--Finn and his
companions knew nothing. To them life was the most delightfully
haphazard affair, made up exclusively of playing, sleeping, and
eating, with a little occasional fighting and mock-fighting (over
the huge bones which were placed at their disposal to serve the
purpose of tooth-brushes and tooth-sharpeners) by way of diversion
and excitement. Their play was not at all unlike that of human
children. They loved to dig holes in the ground; to hide behind
tree-trunks and spring out upon one another with terrifying cries
and pretended fierceness; all kinds of make-believe appealed to
them greatly, and to none of them more keenly than to Finn, who
liked to come galloping down from the other end of the orchard to
the old oak tree, flying exaggerated danger signals, and making
believe that he was pursued by a savage and remorseless enemy.

[Illustration: Tara smiled broadly, and stretched out her fore-legs
on the ground.]

One morning, very much to the amazement of the pups, the Master
came strolling into the orchard, followed by a huge creature of
their own species, who walked with the slow and gracious dignity of
a great queen. None of them guessed that this was Tara, their own
mother, and Tara herself gave no sign of being aware that these
were her own children. After some minutes of embarrassed, watchful
uncertainty, Finn, greatly daring, ventured to step out from among
his companions and approach Tara closely enough to sniff warily at
her legs and tail, his own tail hanging meekly on the ground the
while. Tara sniffed at him once with amiable indifference, and then
turned her head the other way. Two minutes later Finn had
discovered that this great hound was perfectly well-meaning and
kindly disposed, and that, his habit and nature being what they
were, was sufficient to place him at once upon terms of highly
presumptuous familiarity. Having watched their daring brother from
a distance so far, the other pups now took heart of grace, an