anguage, and man's
speech has been denied us, so I only hugged the limb closer and
watched in silence.

I stayed in that tree all day. The boys came home from school, and
called and called me, but I kept as still as a mouse. It was not until
long after dark that I crawled up the lightning-rod and slipped
through the window into my room in the attic. Phil found me there the
next morning when he began his search again. He squeezed me until I
ached, he was so glad to see me. Then he and Elsie brought me my
breakfast and sat on the floor, half crying as they watched me eat,
for the order had gone forth that I must be sent away. The doctor
could forgive his boys when they did wrong, but he couldn't make any
allowance for me.

"I think it's too bad that we have to give up the very nicest pet we
ever had, just because Aunt Patricia don't like him," exclaimed Phil,
mournfully. "Dago didn't do much mischief that can't be mended.
Carnelian rings are as cheap as anything. Nora said so. It would be
easy enough to get her another one as good as the one Dago lost, and
I'd be only too glad to give her my big silver dollar in place of the
gold one. That would be better than the one she had before, for mine
hasn't any hole in it. Dick's tail-feathers will grow out again, and
everything could be fixed as good as new except the old blue dragon,
and he was too ugly to make a fuss about, anyhow!"

"He always had good sugar-plums in him, though," said little Elsie,
who had had her full share of them, and who had so many sweet memories
of the dragon that she looked upon it as a friend.

"I don't care! I love Dago a thousand times more than she could
possibly love an old piece of china or a gold dollar with a hole in
it. I wouldn't take a hundred dollars for Dago, and Aunt Patricia is a
mean old thing to make papa say that we have to give him up. I wished
I dared tell her so. I should like to stand outside her door and
holler at the top of my voice:

"Old Aunt Pat
You're mean as a rat!"

"Why, Philip Tremont!" cried Elsie, in a shocked voice. "Something
awful will happen to you if you talk that way. She isn't just your
aunt, she's your great-aunt, too, in the bargain, and she's an old,
old lady."

"Well, I would!" insisted Phil. "I don't care what you say." Just then
a faint sound of music, far-away down the street, but steadily coming
nearer, floated up the attic stairs. The children ran to the window to
listen, hanging rec