placed it on the floor for Jan.
He knew that the white animal must have been a cow, yet it was not like
the cow at the Pixleys' home, but when he tasted the milk, it was just
as nice as the big, yellow cow's milk.

While breakfast was being eaten, the children and their parents chatted
together and Jan looked about the place. The walls of the rooms were
hung with beautiful pictures, among them many fat little babies with
sunbonnets hiding their faces. He was sure that if the sunbonnets were
pushed back he would see the faces of Ruth and Charlotte laughing at
him.

As time went by Jan was quite happy and learned to love his gentle
playmates very dearly. He grew accustomed to seeing the artists sitting
before boards, painting pictures like those on the walls. Even the
little girls, Ruth and Charlotte, sometimes sat on the ground and made
him lie still while they worked away with pencils and pieces of paper
and told him they were making his picture to put in a book. It did not
quite explain matters to Jan when Ruth held up one of these papers in
front of his nose and said, "You see, Bruin, we're going to be
ill--us--trators like mother when we grow up, and then we'll put you in
a book, maybe!"

After Jan had several good baths the ugly black dye began to wear off
and his white shirt-front and paws and the white streak on his nose
showed plainly. Then the rusty black fur on his entire body became its
natural tawny red and grew rapidly. The Melvilles now realized that Jan
had been stolen and often wondered who had lost him. They asked the few
people they saw but none of them had heard of such a dog, so the family
felt that Jan belonged to them.

Ruth and Charlotte were much interested when their parents told them
that Bruin was a St. Bernard dog, and all about the noble animals that
lived at the Hospice, for the two artists had visited the place many
years before Ruth or Charlotte had been born. When their mother finished
telling them these things, Ruth exclaimed, "Mother! Then you and daddy
and Charlotte and me are all St. Bernard dogs, because we found Bruin
when he was lost, didn't we?"

Jan was not the only pet of this family. The "Melville Menagerie" was
what their mother called the collection of animals. There were two
grown-up goats, named Captain Kidd and Mrs. Cream; two baby-goats,
Peaches and Strawberry; a mother cat named Chicago, because she was
smoke color, and her three kittens, Texas, California, and Pe