heek against it as she walked. Meg had
ceased barking and was now sniffing at Lucy's skirts, his bent tail
wagging slowly, his sneaky eyes looking up into Lucy's face.

"Will he bite, Martha?" she asked, shrinking to one side. She had an
aversion to anything physically imperfect, no matter how lovable it
might be to others. This tattered example struck her as particularly
objectionable.

"No, darlin'--nothin' 'cept his food," and Martha laughed.

"What a horrid little beast!" Lucy said half aloud to herself, clinging
all the closer to the nurse. "This isn't the dog sister Jane wrote me
about, is it? She said you loved him dearly--you don't, do you?"

"Yes, that's the same dog. You don't like him, do you, darlin'?"

"No, I think he's awful," retorted Lucy in a positive tone.

"It's all I had to pet since you went away," Martha answered
apologetically.

"Well, now I'm home, give him away, please. Go away, you dreadful dog!"
she cried, stamping her foot as Meg, now reassured, tried to jump upon
her.

The dog fell back, and crouching close to Martha's side raised his eyes
appealingly, his ear and tail dragging.

Jane now joined them. She had stopped to pick some blossoms for the
house.

"Why, Lucy, what's poor Meg done?" she asked, as she stooped over and
stroked the crestfallen beast's head. "Poor old doggie--we all love
you, don't we?"

"Well, just please love him all to yourselves, then," retorted Lucy
with a toss of her head. "I wouldn't touch him with a pair of tongs. I
never saw anything so ugly. Get away, you little brute!"

"Oh, Lucy, dear, don't talk so," replied the older sister in a pitying
tone. "He was half starved when Martha found him and brought him
home--and look at his poor back--"

"No, thank you; I don't want to look at his poor back, nor his poor
tail, nor anything else poor about him. And you will send him away,
won't you, like a dear good old Martha?" she added, patting Martha's
shoulder in a coaxing way. Then encircling Jane's waist with her arm,
the two sisters sauntered slowly back to the house.

Martha followed behind with Meg.

Somehow, and for the first time where Lucy was concerned, she felt a
tightening of her heart-strings, all the more painful because it had
followed so closely upon the joy of their meeting. What had come over
her bairn, she said to herself with a sigh, that she should talk so to
Meg--to anything that her old nurse loved, for that matter? Jane
interrupted