title="[Pg 12]"/>

Some one came in and said in a low voice: "She is tired out. She must have her supper and be put to bed."

Afterwards it was remembered that she clung to Loveliness and cried a little, foolishly; fretting that she did not want her supper, and demanding that the dog should go up to bed with her and be put at once into his basket by her side. This was gently refused.

"You shall see him in the morning," they told her. Kathleen put the little dog down forcibly from the arms of the child, who wailed at the separation. She called back over the balusters: "Love-li-ness! Good-by, Loveliness! When we're grown up, we'll always be togever, Loveliness!"

The dog barked rebelliously for a few minutes; then sighed, and accepted the situation. He ran back and picked up the pamphlet which Kathleen had dropped, and carried it upstairs to the professor's study, where he laid it on the lowest shelf of the revolving bookcase. The professor glanced at the dog-eared pages and smiled. The pamphlet was one of the innumerable throng issued by some philanthropic society devoted to improving the condition of animals.

When Kathleen came downstairs she found the dog standing at the front door, patiently asking that it might be opened for him. She went down the steps; for it was the rule of the house never to allow the most helpless member of the family at liberty unguarded. The evening was soft, and the maid stood looking idly about. A man in a yellow jersey, and with straight, black eyebrows, was on the other side of the street; but he did not look over. The suburban town was still and pleasant; advancing spring was in the air; no one was passing; only a negro boy lolled on the old-fashioned fence, and shouted: "Hi! Yi! Yi! Look a' dem crows carryin' off a b'iled pertater 'n' a piecer squushed pie!"

"THE MAID STOOD LOOKING IDLY ABOUT"

Kathleen, for very vacuity of mind, turned to look. Neither potatoes nor squash pie were to be seen careering through the skies; nor, in fact, were there any crows.

"I'll have yez arrested for sarse and slander!" cried Kathleen vigorously.

But the negro boy had disappeared. So had the man in the yellow jersey.

"Where's me dog?" muttered Kathleen. It was dipping dusk; it was deepening to dark. She called. Loveliness was an obedient little fellow always; but he did not reply. The maid called again; she examined the front yard and the premises,—slowly, for she was afraid to go in and tell. With the imbecility of the timid and the erring, she took too much time in a fruitless and unintelligent search before she went, trembling, into the house. Kathleen felt that this was the greatest emergency that had occurred since the baby was burned. She went straight to the master's door.

"God have mercy on me, but I've lost the little dog, sir!"

The professor wheeled around in his study chair.

"There was a nigger and a squashed crow—but indeed I never left the little dog, as you bid me, sir—I never left him for the space of me breath between me lips—and when I draws it in the little dog warn't nowhere.... Oh, whatever'll she say? Whatever'll she do? Mother of God, forgive me soul! Who'll tell her?"

Who indeed?

The professor of psychology turned as pale as the paper on which he was about to write his next famous and inexplicable lecture. He pushed by Kathleen and sprang for his hat.

But the child's mother had already run out, bareheaded, into the street, calling the dog as she ran. Nora, the cook, left the dinner to burn, and followed. Kathleen softly shut the nursery door, "So she won't hear," and, sobbing, crept downstairs. The family gathered as if under the black wing of an unspeakable tragedy. They scoured the premises and the street, while the professor rang in the police call. But Loveliness was not to be found.

The carrier came by, on his way home after his day's work was over.

"Great Scott!" he cried. "I'd rather have lost a month's pay. Does she know?"

The newsboy trotted up, and stopped whistling.

"Hully gee!" he said. "What'll the little gell dew?"

The popular cabman came by; he was driving the president, who let down the window and asked what had happened. The driver uttered a mild and academic oath.

"Me 'n' my horse, we're at your disposal as soon as me and the president have got to faculty meeting."

But the president of the University of St. George put his long legs out of the carriage, and bowed the professor into it.

"The cab is at your service now," he said anxiously, "and so am I. They can get along without us for a while, to-night. Anything that I can do to help you, Professor Premice, in this—real calamity—How does the child bear it?"

"Poor little kid!" muttered the cabman. "And to think how I used to snap my whip at 'em in the window!"

"An' how I used to bring him candy, contrary to the postal laws!" sighed the carrier. The cab driver and the postman spoke as if the dog and the child were both already dead.

The group broke slowly and sadly at last. The mother and the maids crept tearfully into the house. The professor, the carrier, the newsboy, and the president threw themselves into the matter as if they had been hunting for a lost child. The president deferred his engagement at the faculty meeting for two hours,—which gave about time for a faculty meeting to get under way. The professor and the cab driver and the police ransacked the town till nearly dawn. It began to rain, and the night grew chilly. The carrier went home, looking like a man in the shade of a public calamity. The newsboy ran around in the storm, shadowing all the negro boys he met, and whistling for Loveliness in dark places where low-bred curs answered him, and yellow mongrels snarled at his soaked heels. But the professor had the worst of it; for when he came in, drenched and tired, in the early morning, a little figure in a lace-trimmed nightgown stood at the head of the stairs, waiting for him.

The professor gave one glance at the child's face, and instinctively covered his own. He could not bear to look at her.

"Papa," said Adah, limping down the stairs, "where is Loveliness? I can't find him! Oh, I cannot find him! And nobody will tell me where he's gone to. Papa? I arxpect you to tell me 'e trufe. Where is my Loveliness?"

Her mother could not comfort or control her. She clung to her father's heart the remainder of the night; moaning at intervals, then unnaturally and piteously still. The rain dashed on the windows, for the storm increased; the child shrank and shivered.

"He's never been out in 'e rain, Papa! He will be wet—and frightened. Papa, who will give him his little baxet, and cover him up warm? Papa! Papa! who will be kind to Loveliness?"

In the broad daylight Adah fell into a short sleep. She woke with a start and a cry, and asked for the dog. "He'll come home to breakfust," she said, with quivering lip. "Tell Nora to have some sugar on his mush when he comes home."

But Loveliness did not come home to breakfast. The child refused to eat her own. She hurried down and crept to the broad window seat, to watch the street. When she saw the empty gray satin cushion, she flung herself face down with a heart-rending cry.

"Papa! Papa! Papa! I never had a 'fliction before. Oh,