th bits of fur
and hair and wool inside, but it was all rent in two.

"I wonder if I can hold my Elmnest steady on the limb when--" I was saying
to myself unsteadily, with a mist in my eyes for the small wrecked home,
when from somewhere over my left shoulder there came Pan's reedy call, and
it ended with the two Delilah notes that I had thought I heard in the early
morning. It was with no will of my own that I answered with that coo which
I had heard Mr. G. Bird singing on the stage of the Metropolitan in my dawn
dream. Also I crashed rapidly through the bushes in the direction of the
call that this time came imperatively and without the coo.

"To your left and then straight toward the oak-tree," came human words from
Pan in quick command and direction. "Hurry!"

With a last struggle with the briars I broke out into a small open space
under the spreading branches of the old oak and upon a scene of tragedy,
that is, it was almost tragedy, for the poor old sheep was lying flat with
pathetic inertia while Adam stood over her with something in his arms.

"It's the fine Southdown ewe I persuaded Rufus to trade for one of the
precious hogs," he said, with not so much as a word of greeting or interest
personal to me in his voice or glance, but with such wonderful tenderness
that I came close to him because I couldn't resist it. "She dropped twin
lambs last night and she is down with exhaustion. They are getting cold,
and I want to take her right up to the barn where I can bed her on hay and
get something hot into all three. Can you cuddle the lambs and carry them
while I shoulder her?" As he spoke he held out his armful to me without
wounding me by waiting for my consent.

"Oh, the poor, cold babies!" I exclaimed, as I lifted the skirt of my long,
fashionable, heavy linen smock and wrapped them in it and my arms, close
against my warm solar plexus, which glowed at their soft huddling. One tiny
thing reached out a little red tongue and feebly licked my bare wrist, and
I returned the caress of introduction with a kiss on its little snowy,
woolly head.

"You've the lovesome hand with the beasties," said Pan as he smiled down on
the lambs and me.

[Illustration: A poor old sheep was lying flat with pathetic inertia while
Adam stood over her with something in his arms]

"I like 'em because they make me sorter grow inside some place, I don't
know exactly where," I answered as I adjusted my woolly burden for what I
knew woul