They and I

And twice a year still extra care was needed, lest it should wantonly fling aside its days and nights of luxurious ease, claim its small share of the passion and pain that go to the making of dogs and men. For twice a year there came a wind, salt with the brine of earth’s ceaseless tides, whispering to it of a wondrous land whose sharpest stones are sweeter than the silken cushions of all the world without.

One winter’s night there was great commotion. Babette was nowhere to be found. We were living in the country, miles away from everywhere. “Babette, Babette,” cried poor frenzied Robina; and for answer came only the laughter of the wind, pausing in his game of romps with the snow-flakes.

Next morning an old woman from the town four miles away brought back Babette at the end of a string. Oh, such a soaked, bedraggled Babette! The old woman had found her crouching in a doorway, a bewildered little heap of palpitating femininity; and, reading the address upon her collar, and may be scenting a not impossible reward, had thought she might as well earn it for herself.

Robina was shocked, disgusted. To think that Babette – dainty, petted, spoilt Babette – should have chosen of her own accord to go down into the mud and darkness of the vulgar town; to leave her curtained eiderdown to tramp the streets like any drab! Robina, to whom Babette had hitherto been the ideal dog, moved away to hide her tears of vexation. The old dame smiled. She had borne her good man eleven, so she told us. It had been a hard struggle, and some had gone down, and some were dead; but some, thank God, were doing well.

The old dame wished us good day; but as she turned to go an impulse seized her. She crossed to where Babette, ashamed, yet half defiant, sat a wet, woeful little image on the hearthrug, stooped and lifted the little creature in her thin, worn arms.

“It’s trouble you’ve brought yourself,” said the old dame. “You couldn’t help it, could you?”

Babette’s little pink tongue stole out.

“We understand, we know – we Mothers,” they seemed to be saying to one another.

And so the two kissed.

I think the terrace will be my favourite spot. Ethelbertha thinks, too, that on sunny days she will like to sit there. From it, through an opening I have made in the trees, I can see the cottage just a mile away at the edge of the wood. Young Bute tells me it is the very place he has been looking for. Most of his time, of course, he has to pass in town, but his Fridays to Mondays he likes to spend in the country. Maybe I shall hand it over to him. St. Leonard’s chimneys we can also see above the trees. Dick tells me he has quite made up his mind to become a farmer. He thinks it would be a good plan, for a beginning, to go into partnership with St. Leonard. It is not unlikely that St. Leonard’s restless temperament may prompt him eventually to tire of farming. He has a brother in Canada doing well in the lumber business, and St. Leonard often talks of the advantages of the colonies to a man who is bringing up a large family. I shall be sorry to lose him as a neighbour; though I see the advantages, under certain possibilities, of Mrs. St. Leonard’s address being Manitoba.

Veronica also thinks the terrace may come to be her favourite resting-place.

“I suppose,” said Veronica, “that if anything was to happen to Robina, everything would fall on me.”

“It would be a change, Veronica,” I suggested. “Hitherto it is you who have done most of the falling.”

“Suppose I’ve got to see about growing up,” said Veronica.