ering solo of misery. This morning, when I was pretty busy, he poked his head between my knees. I had a dozen things calling me, but I took the time to rub his nose and brush back his ears and tell him he was the grandest old dog on all God’s green earth. And he repaid me with a look of adoration that put springs under my heels for the rest of the morning, and came and licked Pee-Wee’s bare heels, and later Poppsy’s, when I was giving them their bath.

Lady Alicia has arrived. So have her trunks, eleven in number—count ’em!—trunks of queer sizes and shapes, of pigskin and patent leather and canvas, with gigantic buckles and straps, and all gaudily initialed and plastered with foreign labels. Her ladyship had to come, of course, at the very worst time of year, when the mud was at its muckiest and the prairie was at its worst. The trails were simply awful, with the last of the frost coming out of the ground and mother earth a foot-deep sponge of engulfing stickiness. All the world seemed turned to mud. I couldn’t go along, of course, when Dinky-Dunk started off in the Teetzels’ borrowed spring “democrat” to meet his English cousin at the Buckhorn station, with Whinstane Sandy and the wagon trailing behind for the luggage.

We expected a lady in somewhat delicate health, so I sent along plenty of rugs and a foot-warmer, and saw that the house was well heated, and the west room bed turned down. Even a hot-water bottle stood ready and waiting to be filled.

But Lady Alicia, when she arrived with Dinky-Dunk 67 just before nightfall, didn’t