olid food, and the visits of his mistress becoming
less frequent, he awoke to certain mysterious arrivals and departures in
a buggy of a sharp-eyed woman all in black, and he came to feel, by
reason of his super-animal instinct, that something of a very grave
nature was about to happen to him. Then one morning late in August he
experienced that which made his fears positive convictions, though
precisely what it was he did not immediately know.

His mistress stepped into the corral with her usual briskness, and,
walking deliberately past him, turned up an empty box in a far corner
and sat down upon it, and called to him. From the instant of her
entrance he had held himself back, but when she called him he rushed
eagerly to her side. She placed her arms around his neck, drew his head
down into her lap, and proceeded to unfold a story--later, tearful.

"It's all settled," she began, with a restful sigh. "We have discussed
it for weeks, and I've had a dreadful time of it, and aunty--my Mexican
aunty, you know--and my other aunty, my regular aunty--I have no
mother--and everybody--got so excited I didn't really know them for my
own, and daddy flared up a little, and--and--" She paused and sighed
again. "But finally they let me have my own way about it--though daddy
called it 'infant tommyrot'--and so here it is!" She tilted up his head
and looked into his eyes. "You, sir," she then went on--"you, sir, from
this day and date--I reckon that is how daddy would say it--you, sir,
from this day and date shall be known as Pat. Your name, sir, is
Pat--P-a-t--Pat! I don't know whether you like it or not, of course! But
I do know that I like it, and under the circumstances I reckon that's
all that is necessary." Then came the tears. "But that isn't all, Pat
dear," she went on, tenderly. "I have something else to tell you, though
it hurts dreadfully for me to do it. But--but I'm going away to school.
I'm going East, to be gone a long time. I want to go, though," she
added, gazing soberly into his eyes; "yet I am afraid to leave you alone
with Miguel. Miguel doesn't like to have you around, and I know it, and
I am afraid he will be cruel to you. But--but I've got to go now. The
dressmaker has been coming for over a month; and--and I'm not even
coming home for vacation. I am to visit relatives, or something, in New
York--or somewhere--and the whole thing is arranged. But I--I don't seem
to want--to--to go away now!" Which was where the t