itting,
and every now and then leaving off to look at her through a great pair
of spec-t-a-c-les spectacles!'"

He touched her arm and whispered:

"I say, Mary, stop a minute--look at that dog down there."

They both stared down into the garden. The dog had stopped at the gate;
it sniffed at the bars, sniffed at the wall beyond, then very slowly but
with real dignity continued its way up the road.

"Poor thing," said Jeremy. "It IS in a mess." Then to their astonishment
the dog turned back and, sauntering down the road again as though it
had nothing all day to do but to wander about, and as though it were not
wet, shivering and hungry, it once more smelt the gate.

"Oh," said Mary and Jeremy together.

"It's like Mother," said Jeremy, "when she's going to see someone and
isn't sure whether it's the right house."

Then, most marvellous of unexpected climaxes, the dog suddenly began to
squeeze itself between the bottom bar of the gate and the ground. The
interval was fortunately a large one; a moment later the animal was in
the Coles' garden.

The motives that led Jeremy to behave as he did are uncertain. It may
have been something to do with the general boredom of the afternoon,
it may have been that he felt pity for the bedraggled aspect of
the animal--most probable reason of all, was that devil-may-care
independence flung up from the road, as it were, expressly at himself.

The dog obviously did not feel any great respect for the Cole household.
He wandered about the garden, sniffing and smelling exactly as though
the whole place belonged to him, and a ridiculous stump of tail,
unsubdued by the weather, gave him the ludicrous dignity of a Malvolio.

"I'm going down," whispered Jeremy, flinging a cautious glance at Helen
who was absorbed in her sewing.

Mary's eyes grew wide with horror and admiration. "You're not going
out," she whispered. "In the snow. Oh, Jeremy. They WILL be angry."

"I don't care," whispered Jeremy back again. "They can be."

Indeed, before Mary's frightened whisper he had not intended to do more
than creep down into the pantry and watch the dog at close range; now
it was as though Mary had challenged him. He knew that it was the most
wicked thing that he could do--to go out into the snow without a coat
and in his slippers. He might even, according to Aunt Amy, die of
it, but as death at present meant no more to him than a position of
importance and a quantity of red-currant jelly an