ill
in opening parcels, yawn and fall asleep over each box in turn. At his
best, he bit drowsily into the pasteboard and pushed at the string more
clumsily than usual with a pair of grimy paws from which the circle of
silken skirts would draw away. Christmas, indeed, and an inaccessible
chocolate caramel for dinner!

Sigurd's most thrilling adventures, naturally, had to do with dogs, but
cats were an interesting side issue. The self-protective qualities of
the feline race I realized on our first Sunday walk with the puppy,
when a gray kitten bobbed up in our path. Sigurd romped forward,
Joy-of-Life caught him by the collar, and I, for my sins, picked up the
kitten. It looked so tiny, helpless and soft; it felt like a frame of
steel and wire, every little muscle tense, while its claws flashed out
like daggers and ripped up the back of my hand. In due time Sigurd
learned how formidable a cat may be. If she ran, he pelted after until
she took refuge up a tree, but if she proved to be some shrewd old
grimalkin who held her ground he suddenly slackened his pace and
sauntered casually by, trying to look as if he did not see her.

His one constant dog friend was Laddie. Their escapades were the top of
all adventure,--such orgies of wild joy that I would gladly lie awake
again listening for the hoarse bark of our returning prodigal. But with
other dogs of his own sex, acquaintance, however affably begun, would
soon ripen into a fight, unless the new comrade were too small and weak
or had reasons of his own for declining the test of battle. With Gyp,
across the way, a sly little black and tan, well-named, for his
ancestors must have run with the Romany folk and bequeathed to him a
genius for thievery, Sigurd did not take the trouble to quarrel. Gyp,
always skulking about our premises, would make off with any of our
lighter possessions carelessly left on porch or lawn. We had suffered
these losses without redress--for to the dog's master, only too ready
to beat poor Gyp cruelly on the least provocation, we would not make
complaint--till Sigurd came. He had been with us barely a week when,
one afternoon, as we were reading under the trees, Joy-of-Life reached
a hand behind her for her parasol. It was not there. As we both
exclaimed, questioned and looked about under the shrubbery where the
wind, had there been a wind, could not possibly have blown it, our new
guardian stood watching our

"unsuccessful pains
W