ng married and reared a
freckled family, like hers, was moved to add: "But I mak nae doobt ye
are mooch respectet where ye cam fram." She would have been confirmed
in this amiable concession if she could have seen how their return was
a village jubilee and how all our accumulated joys and sorrows trooped
in at once through their open doors. They were Ladies of rare and
precious quality, with a touch of precise, old-fashioned elegance,
which made one frank admirer exclaim: "But they are like finest china,
like porcelain, like _Sevres_. There is nothing so exquisite left on
earth. They are classics." Most eminently of all, they were Sisters. A
childhood of strange peril and suffering, in which their hearts clung
so close together that they grew into one, had fitted naturally
dissimilar natures into an utter harmony of desire and deed. Nobody
ever thought of one without the other. Not Castor and Pollux shine with
a more closely related and serener light.

The Sisters hardly waited for our first tumult of greetings to subside
before, on a September afternoon as quietly radiant as their own faces,
they drove over to Cedar Hill to see what they described as "ten little
fluffy balls, only just large enough to wriggle." The choice of their
collie they left to the giver. It was not determined then, but early in
April they had a message setting the day on which they were to "come
for Hrut." I presume they kissed the telephone. At all events, they
went with glad alacrity. As the door opened to admit them, a beautiful
little collie, pure white save for touches of a rich golden brown on
the ears, on the fall of the tail and on the top of his nobly carried
head, ran to meet them and sprang into the outstretched arms of the
foremost, cuddling there as if he knew that he had found his Earthly
Paradise.

His mistress had followed directly after him, aglow with pride in the
grace of his welcome.

"But this one cannot be ours,--he is _too_ lovely," exclaimed the
Sister who was already clasping him tight.

"Yes," smiled the Lady of Cedar Hill, "this one is yours," and the
puppy acquiesced with wagging tail and lapping tongue and every collie
courtesy.

From the first a delicate little fellow, the long drive back made him
ill, but he never gave, then or later, the least sign of homesickness,
settling at once with aristocratic ease into the comforts and
privileges of his new environment and lavishly returning love for love.

The Sist