all--and there he is now, making
himself so charmingly at home, the beautiful boy. I _do_ wish you
could see him."

"_We will_," responded Joy-of-Life, and off we started to chastise
Young Impudence, whom we had begun to suspect of being a trifle
self-willed; but when we arrived the Sisters would by no means consent
to his overthrow. So there, while the chat went on, Sigurd lolled and
sprawled, yawning, stretching himself to an incredible length, rolling
over on his back with paws held high as if to applaud his victory and
continually turning up to Joy-of-Life eyes of such sparkling glee that
her purposes of discipline melted in mirth.

None the less, she was a match for him, resorting to strategy when she
was forbidden the exercise of force. Calling Laddie to her, she began
to stroke his nestling head. Instantly Sigurd, with a multitudinous
flourish of legs that might have moved a centipede to envy, flung
himself off the sofa and roared imperiously at the front door:

"Open this, Somebody, and be quick about it, too. Time to be off. Oh,
come along, Folks. You've no need to pat any dog but me. Good-night,
Lovely Ladies. S'long, Lad. See you tomorrow in the gloaming."

And unless we kept a strict watch, so he would. How often, while
surveying from our west porch, with Sigurd demurely sitting up between
us, the last faint flushes of the sunset sky, from across the road
there would be suddenly visible against the dusk a presence like a
celestial apparition, so white and hushed it was, the shining figure,
the lifted, listening head! And in the fraction of a second, even while
we were catching at his collar, off would go Sigurd with a great leap,
and away the brother collies would tear on a mighty run that kept two
households anxious far into the night. There was nothing celestial
about their behavior.

These lawless excursions often culminated in garbage-pail raids,
debauches from which the young prodigals would sneak home, abashed with
nausea. Once in a Commencement season we returned late in the evening,
with a guest, from the high solemnity of the President's Reception, to
find our hall strewn with Jonah strips of ham-rind and junks of
pumpkin. Our guest was a brilliant, worldly being, a very dragon-fly of
swiftness and gleam, and there she stood, exquisitely gowned in
rose-red under lace whose color was that of moonlight seen through thin
clouds, beholding our culprit, who an hour before had been exultantly
rangi