d Moufflou with him?" asked Tasso.

"The _barbone_ he had bought went with him," said the porter of the
hotel. "Such a beast! Howling, shrieking, raging all the day, and all
the paint scratched off the _salon_ door."

Poor Moufflou! Tasso's heart was heavy as he heard of that sad helpless
misery of their bartered favorite and friend.

"What matter?" said his mother, fiercely, when he told her. "A dog is a
dog. They will feed him better than we could. In a week he will have
forgotten--_che!_"

But Tasso feared that Moufflou would not forget. Lolo certainly would
not. The doctor came to the bedside twice a day, and ice and water were
kept on the aching hot little head that had got the malady with the long
name, and for the chief part of the time Lolo lay quiet, dull, and
stupid, breathing heavily, and then at intervals cried and sobbed and
shrieked hysterically for Moufflou.

"Can you not get what he calls for to quiet him with a sight of it?"
said the doctor. But that was not possible, and poor Rosina covered her
head with her apron and felt a guilty creature.

"Still, you will not go to the army," she said to Tasso. Clinging to
that immense joy for her consolation. "Only think! we can pay Guido
Squarcione to go for you. He always said he would go if anybody would
pay him. Oh, my Tasso, surely to keep you is worth a dog's life!"

"And Lolo's?" said Tasso, gloomily. "Nay, mother, it works ill to meddle
too much with fate. I drew my number; I was bound to go. Heaven would
have made it up to you somehow."

"Heaven sent me the foreigner; the Madonna's own self sent him to ease a
mother's pain," said Rosina, rapidly and angrily. "There are the
thousand francs safe to hand in the _cassone_, and what, pray, is it we
miss? Only a dog like a sheep, that brought gallons of mud in with him
every time it rained, and ate as much as any one of you."

"But Lolo?" said Tasso, under his breath.

His mother was so irritated and so tormented by her own conscience that
she upset all the cabbage broth into the burning charcoal.

"Lolo was always a little fool, thinking of nothing but the church and
the dog and nasty field-flowers," she said, angrily. "I humored him ever
too much because of the hurt to his hip, and so--and so--"

Then the poor soul made matters worse by dropping her tears into the
saucepan, and fanning the charcoal so furiously that the flame caught
her fan of cane-leaves, and would have burned her arm had not Ta