on the panel, the door
was opened by snod and smiling Mistress Jeanie, who invited these slum
bairns into such a cozy, spotless kitchen as was not possible in the
tenements. Mr. Brown sat by the hearth, bundled in blue and white
blankets of wonderfully blocked country weaving. Bobby put his fore paws
on the caretaker's chair and laid his precious bone in the man's lap.

"Eh, ye takin' bit rascal; loup!" Bobby jumped to the patted knee,
turned around and around on the soft bed that invited him, licked the
beaming old face to show his sympathy and friendliness, and jumped down
again. Mr. Brown sighed because Bobby steadily but amiably refused to be
anybody's lap-dog. The caretaker turned to the admiring children.

"Ilka morn he fetches 'is bit bane up, thinkin' it a braw giftie for an
ill man. An' syne he veesits me twa times i' the day, juist bidin' a
wee on the hearthstane, lollin' 'is tongue an' waggin' 'is tail,
cheerfu'-like. Bobby has mair gude sense in 'is heid than mony a man wha
comes ben the hoose, wi' a lang face, to let me ken I'm gangin' to dee.
Gin I keep snug an' canny it wullna gang to the heart. Jeanie, woman,
fetch ma fife, wull ye?"

Then there were strange doings in the kirkyard lodge. James Brown "wasna
gangin' to dee" before his time came, at any rate. In his youth, as
under-gardener on a Highland estate, he had learned to play the piccolo
flute, and lately he had revived the pastoral art of piping just because
it went so well with Bobby's delighted legs. To the sonsie air of
"Bonnie Dundee" Bobby hopped and stepped and louped, and he turned
about on his hind feet, his shagged fore paws drooped on his breast as
daintily as the hands in the portraits of early Victorian ladies. The
fire burned cheerily in the polished grate, and winked on every shining
thing in the room; primroses bloomed in the diamond-paned casement; the
skylark fluttered up and sang in its cage; the fife whistled as gaily as
a blackbird, and the little dog danced with a comic clumsiness that made
them all double up with laughter. The place was so full of brightness,
and of kind and merry hearts, that there was room for nothing else. Not
one of them dreamed that the shadow of the law was even then over this
useful and lovable little dog's head.

A glance at the wag-at-the-wa' clock reminded Ailie that Mr. Traill
might be waiting for Bobby.

Curious about the mystery, the children took the little dog down to the
gate, happily. Th