coming less frequent, he awoke to certain
mysterious arrivals and departures in a buggy of a
sharp-eyed woman all in black, and he came to
feel, by reason of his super-animal instinct, that
something of a very grave nature was about to
happen to him. Then one morning late in August
he experienced that which made his fears
positive convictions, though precisely what it
was he did not immediately know.

His mistress stepped into the corral with her
usual briskness, and, walking deliberately past
him, turned up an empty box in a far corner and
sat down upon it, and called to him. From the
instant of her entrance he had held himself back,
but when she called him he rushed eagerly to her
side. She placed her arms around his neck, drew
his head down into her lap, and proceeded to unfold
a story -- later, tearful.

"It's all settled," she began, with a restful
sigh. "We have discussed it for weeks, and I've
had a dreadful time of it, and aunty -- my Mexican
aunty, you know -- and my other aunty, my regular
aunty -- I have no mother -- and everybody -- got
so excited I didn't really know them for my
own, and daddy flared up a little, and -- and--"
She paused and sighed again. "But finally they
let me have my own way about it -- though daddy
called it 'infant tommyrot' -- and so here it is!"
She tilted up his head and looked into his eyes.
"You, sir," she then went on -- "you, sir, from
this day and date -- I reckon that is how daddy
would say it -- you, sir, from this day and date

[[43]]

p042 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p043w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p044

v?