t of bone, as she
remained to the day of her death, but with a slimness which carried
with it a hint of lithe power and speed and endurance.
It was in the early spring that the Master promoted Lady from her
winter sleeping-quarters in the tool-house; and began to let her spend
more and more time indoors.
Lady had all the promise of becoming a perfect housedog. Fastidious,
quick to learn, she adapted herself almost at once to indoor life. And
Lad was overjoyed at her admission to the domain where until now he had
ruled alone. Personally, and with the gravity of an old-world host, he
conducted her from room to room. He even offered her a snoozing-place
in his cherished "cave," under the piano, in the music room the spot of
all others dearest to him.
But it was dim and cheerless, under the piano; or so Lady seemed to
think. And she would not go there for an instant. She preferred the
disreputable grizzly-bear rug in front of the living room hearth. And,
temporarily deserting his loved cave, Lad used to lie on this rug at
her side; well content when she edged him off its downy center and onto
the bumpy edges.
All winter, Lady's sleeping quarters had been the tool-house in the
back garden, behind the stables. Here, on a sweet-smelling (and
flea-averting) bed of cedar shavings, she had been comfortable and
wholly satisfied. But, at once, on her promotion, she appeared to look
upon the once-homelike tool-house as a newly rich daylaborer might
regard the tumbledown shack where he had spent the days of his poverty.
She avoided the tool-house; and even made wide detours to avoid passing
close to it. There is no more thoroughgoing snob, in certain ways, than
a high-bred dog. And, to Lady, the tool-house evidently represented a
humiliating phase of her outlived past.
Yet, she was foredoomed to go back to the loathed abode. And her return
befell in this way:
In the Master's study was something which Lady considered the most
enthrallingly wonderful object on earth. This was a stuffed American
eagle; mounted, rampant and with outflung wings, on a papier-mache
stump.
Why the eagle should have fascinated Lady more than did the
leopard-or-bear rugs or other chase-trophies, in the various downstairs
rooms, only Lady herself could have told. But she could not keep her
eyes off of it. Tiptoeing to the study door, she used to stand for half
an hour at a time staring at the giant bird.
Once, in a moment of audacity, she m
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