and took
themselves off to look for safer holiday sport. Sigurd thought he had
frightened them away and swaggered home with a marked revival of
spirits.

When Dr. Vet at last pronounced all danger of contagion over, the
Sisters, leaving Laddie behind, made a congratulatory call on our
invalid, whose lyric cry, albeit hoarse and squeaky, shrilled to the
Dogstar as he welcomed them, now climbing up to their shoulders in
fervent embrace, now modulating his roundelay to the plaintive note as
he tried his best to tell them what "Poor Sigurd" had suffered. _They_
were sympathetic; _they_ were intelligent; and tumbling into the
forbidden easy chair, Sigurd made it clear to them, and they in turn
made it clear to his dull mistresses, that his swollen throat could
nowhere be so comfortable as here, where the chair-arm supported the
chin. It was then that our last shred of arbitrary discipline gave way.
Sigurd had won the throne of his ambition. In course of time, this
became Sigurd's Chair, given over to his exclusive occupancy, scratched
and rubbed and shabby, the most disreputable and, to his mind, the most
enjoyable of our furnishings.

Laddie escaped the distemper, but of other mischances he had more than
his share. He was scalded by his own dear Annie, against whom he had
unluckily run when she was carrying a pitcher of boiling water; he was
shot through the leg, as he was assisting in a midnight serenade given
by the dogs of the neighborhood to a belle shut up in the house of her
bad-tempered master; but the sorest pang of all was the departure of
his mistresses for another year abroad. The Elder Cousin had gone on a
longer journey; the corner by the hearth was lonely for the lack of
that small gray figure, the hands so busy with their knitting, the face
so shrewd and kindly; and all we village-folk called to express our
sympathy and remained to burden theirs with long recitals of our
various tribulations until the Sisters, utterly worn out, had again to
seek solitude overseas.

What to do with Laddie? Gunnar, disgusted enough at having Flosi back
again, flatly avowed that he would not put up with another brother on
the premises. Ralph, in the fullness of years, and little Dora,
prematurely, had slipped away to Shadowland, bequeathing the care of
Cedar Hill to Gunnar, who was keenly alive to his responsibilities.
From one of our recent visits Sigurd had come back with a bleeding ear
and a red blotch on the top of his h