The next morning at breakfast I said to Julius,--

"I am afraid Bruno will be ill staying in-doors so closely. Can't you take him for a little run before you go to the office?"

"Yes," answered Julius, "I'll take him if he'll go."

"Oh, he'll go fast enough. Dinah is here, and he will think it safe to leave me."

Bruno was delighted at the invitation, and went tearing around the square four times while Julius walked it once; then came in, hot and happy, to tell Catsie and me all about it.

There was something so peculiarly tender about our feelings for Bruno and his for us. He was at once our protector and our dependent. It is not strange that we never failed to be thoroughly enraged when dog-lovers tried, as they sometimes did, to coax us to sell him. Sell our Bruno! True, we had tried to give him away, but that was for his own good. But to take money for him! To sell him!! Unspeakable!!!

Three times we had nursed him through trying illnesses,--twice the blind staggers, and once the distemper; and when either of us was ill, he could not be coaxed from the bedside. No matter who watched at night, Bruno would watch too, and no slightest sound nor movement escaped his vigilance.

How often since he left us have I longed in weary vigils for the comfort of his presence!

CHAPTER XVII

In looking back at that winter, most of its evenings seem to have been spent before the open fire, the room lighted only by its blaze.

Sometimes Little Blossom lay across my knees, the firelight mirrored in her thoughtful eyes, her pink toes curling and uncurling to the heat.

Sometimes she lay cradled in Julius's arms, while he crooned old ditties remembered from his own childhood.

Bruno never seemed to tire of studying this new-comer to our home circle. He would stand with ears drooped forward, watching me bathe and dress her, so absorbed in contemplation that he would start when I spoke, as if he had forgotten my existence.

He had always before seemed intensely jealous when Julius or I had noticed children, but with Little Blossom it was different; he seemed to share our feelings,--she was _our_ baby.

At first he showed a disposition to play with her as he had long ago romped with Rebecca's kittens, but after I had once explained to him that she was too little and tender for such frolics, that he must wait till she could run about, he seemed quite satisfied, and const.i.tuted himself her guardian, as he had always been mine. While she slept, he would lie beside her crib. When she took an airing, it was his delight to walk proudly beside the carriage. When I held her, he sat at my elbow; and when she laughed and cooed in her romps with Julius, he would make short runs around the room, barking his delight.

Happy hours, all too short!

As spring advanced, our Little Blossom drooped. Her brain had always been in advance of her physical development. She had never the meaningless stare seen in normal babies. Instead, there was a wistful, pensive expression as she gazed into the fire or through the window, with always a quick dimpling smile when either of us spoke to her. There was much sickness in town, especially among young children. We decided to spend the summer months at the seash.o.r.e. A cottage was leased, and trunks were packed full of summer clothes, draperies, and other joys and comforts.

When the time came to start, the cry arose,--

"Where is Bruno?"

No one knew. None remembered seeing him since breakfast. It was now half-past ten. The train was to go at eleven, and we were three-quarters of a mile from the station! We felt utterly lost. It was impossible to leave Bruno, and yet we must go.

Julius looked in all directions, calling and whistling. No answer. Our baggage had gone, a wagon full of it. The tickets were bought, and everything was arranged.

Julius came in from an unsuccessful search, a look of desperation on his face.

"There's no help for it," he said; "we must start, Bruno or no Bruno."

We locked up the house and set off. As we drove along, I kept looking out, hoping to see the familiar form come dashing after us, but in vain.

Julius was to come into town each morning to the office, returning to us at the seash.o.r.e on the afternoon train. I began to think I could not know Bruno's fate (for I feared something serious must have happened) until the afternoon of the next day. We had been so delayed it was necessary to make all speed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Chasing Crabs and Sea-Birds.--PAGE 111.]

We hurried into the station, and there, standing beside our heap of luggage, one eye for the packages and the other on the lookout for us, stood Bruno!

He greeted us with such extravagant delight, and we felt so relieved at seeing him, that we found no reproaches ready. Besides, although he had so delayed us, it was quite evident that he had thought we had our hands over-full, and that by keeping his eye on the things he would be helping us. So he had followed the wagon, overlooked the unloading, and evidently had kept tally of every package. Our man who had driven the wagon was to go on with us to help in the transfer at the other end, and to make all ready for comfort in the cottage. He told us that Bruno had mounted guard over him as well as our effects, and while rather overdoing it, had been quite helpful.

It is hard to write of the weeks that followed.

I see Bruno racing up and down the beach and swimming out through the breakers, while Julius and I sit on either side of a little wicker wagon drawn up beyond the reach of the tide, watching him.

I see him chasing crabs and sea-birds, or limping up to show us his foot stung by a stranded jelly-fish.

Then--darkness.

It is night in a long white-draped room.

One end of it is lighted by a lamp having a rose-colored shade.

In the middle of the lighted end stands a crib. A little white-robed form lies within.

The pink light so simulates a glow of health that the mother, sitting beside the crib, bends low, thinking the little breast heaves.

But no. The waxen cheeks chill her lips.

Still she bends and gazes on that loved little form.

Bruno lies at the mother's feet. When she moves he rises, looking mournfully into the crib, then turns to rest his head on her knee.

On a lounge, in the end of the room where shadows lurk, the father lies asleep, exhausted with grief.

The curtains sway in the open windows, as if the room were breathing.

All else is still.

I see all this as if it were a scene in a dream or as a picture,--something in which I have no part; and yet I feel that my heart throbbed in that mother's bosom.

I know that after she had sent away all kind friends, to watch alone that last night, it was literally and truly a "white night" to her.

She felt neither sorrow nor grief.

Yesterday her heart was torn with anguish, when those heavenly eyes grew dim with the death-glaze.

To-morrow it will be rent again, when the little form is hidden from her in its white casket; and again--at that bitterest moment Life can give--when the first handful of earth makes hollow echo above it.

But to-night there is the uplifted feeling of perfect peace.

Although it is the third sleepless night, there is no thought of weariness. All through the short hours she sits and feasts her eyes on the angelic face with its look of joy unutterable.