day. One such gathering proved enough for all time.

On a delectable autumn afternoon we set forth, just after luncheon, in
a roomy surrey, The Sisters, Joy-of-Life, my nephew--then a wide-eyed
small boy, now a surgeon working for the wounded in France,--and I,
with Sigurd and Laddie racing alongside, to attend Gunnar's birthday
party. Six or seven of his brothers and sisters were assembled, but at
this distance of time I cannot call the roll. Among them were probably
Helga, who, becoming Lady Gwendolyn, lived to a reverend age; certainly
Flosi, who returned from the new owner to Cedar Hill, where his
frolicsome years were nine; perhaps Hauskuld, dearly beloved, who, like
Sigurd, was tormented in hot weather by the aristocratic ailment of
eczema, and perhaps Helgi, who, as far as the family record is known,
outlived all his generation, dying at the ripe age, for a high-bred
collie, of thirteen. There was no receiving line and never a moment
that afternoon when it was easy to distinguish them, for it was all one
glorious scrimmage from arrival to departure.

Ralph, growing more and more inhospitable with the years, had been
locked up as a precaution against tragedy, and resplendent young
Gunnar, the host of the day, assailed his guests so violently that he,
too, had to be put on his chain, where he alternately strained and
sulked all the afternoon. No wonder he never gave another party. But
Dora, always bewitching in her ways, found the occasion entertaining
and tolerated her children, if she could not be said to welcome them.
Meanwhile, by unremitting vigilance on the part of masters and
mistresses, the guests were restrained from too furious attacks on one
another, until the banquet, consisting of a row of extraordinarily big
and marrowy bones, was served. Each dog was instantly prompted by the
Evil One to covet his neighbor's bone, but after a really magnificent
display of authority on the part of their respective guardians, the
raging bunch of white and sable was disentangled. Separated by wide
distances, the collies, graceful figures lying on green lawn and bank,
fell to their crunching in comparative peace, while Gunnar, spurning
his own birthday dinner, roared grace from the end of his chain, with
Ralph's gruff _amen_ coming down from the open windows of his prison
chamber. I blush to record that Sigurd, having polished off his bone at
top speed, proceeded without ceremony to appropriate Laddie's. This was
rescue