her nice clean rooms. She told me so.
Leave him. I say."

"Leave Moufflou!" echoed Lolo, for never in all Moufflou's life had Lolo
parted from him. Leave Moufflou! He stared open-eyed and open-mouthed at
his mother. What could have come to her?

"Leave him, I say," she repeated, more sharply than ever. "Must I speak
twice to my own children? Be off with you, and leave the dog, I say."

And she clutched Moufflou by his long silky mane and dragged him
backwards, whilst with the other hand she thrust out of the door Lolo
and Bice.

Lolo began to hammer with his crutch at the door thus closed on him; but
Bice coaxed and entreated him.

"Poor mother has been so worried about Tasso," she pleaded. "And what
harm can come to Moufflou? And I do think he was tired, Lolo; the
Cascine is a long way; and it is quite true that Aunt 'Nita never liked
him."

So by one means and another she coaxed her brother away; and they went
almost in silence to where their Aunt Anita dwelt, which was across the
river, near the dark-red bell-shaped dome of Santa Spirito.

It was true that her aunt had wanted them to mind her room and her
babies whilst she was away carrying home some lace to a villa outside
the Roman gate, for she was a lace-washer and clear-starcher by trade.
There they had to stay in the little dark room with the two babies, with
nothing to amuse the time except the clang of the bells of the church of
the Holy Spirit, and the voices of the lemonade-sellers shouting in the
street below. Aunt Anita did not get back till it was more than dusk,
and the two children trotted homeward hand in hand, Lolo's leg dragging
itself painfully along, for without Moufflou's white figure dancing on
before him he felt very tired indeed. It was pitch dark when they got to
Or San Michele, and the lamps burned dully.

Lolo stumped up the stairs wearily, with a vague, dull fear at his small
heart.

"Moufflou, Moufflou!" he called. Where was Moufflou? Always at the first
sound of his crutch the poodle came flying towards him. "Moufflou,
Moufflou!" he called all the way up the long, dark twisting stone stair.
He pushed open the door, and he called again, "Moufflou, Moufflou!"

But no dog answered to his call.

"Mother, where is Moufflou?" he asked, staring with blinking, dazzled
eyes into the oil-lit room where his mother sat knitting. Tasso was not
then home from work. His mother went on with her knitting; there was an
uneasy look on her fa