like I do about it. We would both of us have given a hundred
dollars to get the dog back for him, when we saw how bad he felt. But
it was too late. Somehow or other it is most generally too late when a
rotten thing has been done.

"To-day he went again to the Rothsay Kennels to ask if she had come
back. He has always been hoping she would. And they told him you have
her. Now, sir, I am a poor man, but if one hundred dollars will make
you sell me that dog, I'll send it to you in a money order by return
mail. It will be worth ten times that much, to my wife and me, to have
Dick happy again. I inclose a stamp. Will you let me know?"

Six weeks afterward The Place's car brought Dick Hazen across to
receive his long-lost pet.

The boy was thinner and shakier and whiter than when he had gone to
sleep with his cherished puppy curled against his narrow chest. But
there was a light in his eyes and an eagerness in his heart that had
not been there in many a long week.

Lass was on the veranda to welcome him. And as Dick scrambled out of
the car and ran to pick her up, she came more than half-way to meet
him. With a flurry of fast-pattering steps and a bark of eager welcome,
she flung herself upon her long-vanished master. For a highbred collie
does not forget. And at first glimpse of the boy Lass remembered him.

Dick caught her up in his arms--a harder feat than of yore, because of
her greater weight and his own sapped strength,--and hugged her tight
to his breast. Winking very fast indeed to disperse tears that had no
place in the eyes of a self-contained man of twelve, he sputtered
rapturously:

"I KNEW I'd find you, Lassie--I knew it all the time;--even the times
when I was deadsure I wouldn't! Gee, but you've grown, though! And
you're beautifuler than ever. Isn't she, Miss?" he demanded, turning to
the Mistress with instinctive knowledge that here at least he would
find confirmation. "Indeed she is!" the Mistress assured him.

"And see how glad she is to be with you again! She--"

"And Dad says she can stay with me, for keeps!" exulted Dick. "He says
he'll put a new lock on the cellar door, so she can't ever push out
again, the way she did, last time. But I guess she's had her lesson in
going out for walks at night and not being able to find her way back.
She and I are going to have the dandiest times together, that ever
happened. Aren't we, Lass? Is that her little boy?" he broke off, in
eager curiosity, as the Mas