the last service to be rendered to him save that very last of all when
the funeral office should be read above his little grave among the
millions of nameless dead at the sepulchres of the poor at Trebbiano.

All was still as the priest's voice ceased; only the sobs of the mother
and of the children broke the stillness as they kneeled; the hand of
Biondina had stolen into Tasso's.

Suddenly, there was a loud scuffling noise; hurrying feet came patter,
patter, patter up the stairs, a ball of mud and dust flew over the heads
of the kneeling figures, fleet as the wind Moufflou dashed through the
room and leaped upon the bed.

Lolo opened his heavy eyes, and a sudden light of consciousness gleamed
in them like a sunbeam. "Moufflou!" he murmured, in his little thin
faint voice. The dog pressed close to his breast and kissed his wasted
face.

Moufflou was come home!

And Lolo came home too, for death let go its hold upon him. Little by
little, very faintly and flickeringly and very uncertainly at the first,
life returned to the poor little body, and reason to the tormented,
heated little brain. Moufflou was his physician; Moufflou, who, himself
a skeleton under his matted curls, would not stir from his side and
looked at him all day long with two beaming brown eyes full of
unutterable love.

Lolo was happy; he asked no questions,--was too weak, indeed, even to
wonder. He had Moufflou; that was enough.

Alas! though they dared not say so in his hearing, it was not enough for
his elders. His mother and Tasso knew that the poodle had been sold and
paid for; that they could lay no claim to keep him; and that almost
certainly his purchaser would seek him out and assert his indisputable
right to him. And then how would Lolo ever bear that second
parting?--Lolo, so weak that he weighed no more than if he had been a
little bird.

Moufflou had, no doubt, traveled a long distance and suffered much. He
was but skin and bone; he bore the marks of blows and kicks; his once
silken hair was all discolored and matted; he had, no doubt, traveled
far. But then his purchaser would be sure to ask for him, soon or late,
at his old home; and then? Well, then if they did not give him up
themselves, the law would make them.

Rosina Calabucci and Tasso, though they dared say nothing before any of
the children, felt their hearts in their mouths at every step on the
stair, and the first interrogation of Tasso every evening when he came
from