gurd sulked in the shabby depths of his
dear old chair. All the small folk of our neighborhood flocked in to
pat Puppy Ki-yi, as Joy-of-Life and I privily dubbed our guest, but
only Wee-wee, whose own name for the mite was "Minister--Ittle Teeny
Minister, coz he stan's on his back legs an' jiggles his arms an'
pweaches at us," divined Sigurd's jealous misery. She snuggled down in
the chair beside him, hugging the yellow ball into which he had rolled
himself and solicitously explaining that "Minister is the best 'ittle
dog, and Sigurd is the best gweat _big_ dog," but the Volsung did not
care for a divided homage and shook his ears at all puppy worshipers.

Then the Seraph disappeared, as all his student lovers, one after
another, would disappear. Letters came back to him and gifts, but he
could not puzzle out what these had to do with the dancing playmate no
longer to be found on hillside or by lake. Nor could he foresee the day
when that ridiculous Puck, grown into a noble collie, would in his turn
sorely miss the Seraph, who had sailed away, on the ship that bore
another of Sigurd's most devoted Wellesley lassies, to France. There
were dogs on that ship, Professor Peggy and her scarred comrades,
veterans of war, that had been sent over, like wounded French officers,
to instruct, and were now returning to duty at the front. But Puck, too
old for the Red Cross training, was left behind, sniffing up and down
the garden paths in patient search for his dainty mistress, who,
arrayed in gas-mask and trench-helmet, was serving from a battered
camionette hot coffee and cocoa to our boys in khaki just behind the
trenches.

In the Orchard, too, the venerable Cousin for whom Sigurd since
puppyhood had cherished a romantic attachment, the white-haired
inamorata whom he would run to meet with his most grotesque waggle, was
no longer to be found in the familiar nooks from which Laddie had long
since disappeared. And now that the all-beloved Elder Sister lay
mortally ill, Sigurd pattered over day after day to look in at the
sickroom and invite a stroking from the delicate hand that would rest
so languidly upon his lifted head. Sometimes he carried her a yellow
chrysanthemum or a cluster of cream-colored tea-roses tied to his
collar. And when she had passed to Paradise through brain-wandering
memories of Italy, as through a vestibule of beauty, Sigurd coaxed long
at the closed door, whining softly, calling to his friend, troubled by