Before the gate.

_Oh, how the frolic feet
On lonely memory beat!
What rapture in a run
'Twixt snow and sun!_

"Nay, brother of the sod,
What part hast thou in God?
What spirit art thou of?"
It answers: "Love,"

Lifting its head, no less
Cajoling a caress,
Our winsome collie wraith,
Than in glad faith

The door will open wide,
Or kind voice bid: "Abide,
A threshold soul to greet
The longed-for feet."

_Ah, Keeper of the Portal,
If Love be not immortal,
If Joy be not divine,
What prayer is mine?_

THE CALL OF THE BLOOD

"Come, brother; away!"

--Shakespeare's _Much Ado About Nothing_.

Sigurd was not the only representative of his family in our favored
town. His sister Hildigunna, who might well be described in the words
applied to Hildigunna of the saga as "one of the fairest," was given
to a comparatively remote household in Wellesley Hills from
which--alas!--she soon was stolen and spirited away to fates unknown.
But his brother Hrut, a name speedily changed by his new owners to
Laddie, took up his happy abode at The Orchard, not half a mile from
us. These owners, returning from one of their many holidays abroad,
had found on shipboard the Lady of Cedar Hill, on her way back from
Norway. Of course she told them about the ten puppies and of course
she promised them one.

Reared in the best traditions of New England, these travelers had
already achieved an ideal success as founders and directors of a famous
school for girls and had retired from active labors to a tranquil home
whose broad Colonial porches were screened with "white foam flowers" of
the clematis. They were Neighbors _par excellence_, so beloved, so
leaned upon, so beset with callers and "old girls," with church
committees and town committees, with causes and confidences, that they
literally had to go to Europe to secure an occasional rest. And it was
charming to see how their modest dignity and winsome graciousness
received due meed of honor the Old World over, from titled personages
of London to the very cab-drivers of Florence, whom they believed to be
"honorable men" and were undoubtedly cheated less for so believing.
Hard, shrewd faces of Paris pensions and Swiss hotels softened in their
presence, and even the severe old Scotch dame who rated them roundly
for gadding about the globe instead of havi