to their new names with chanting--Poor Qua--Nessa Pa. The chant grew so
melancholy that the puppies subsided; oppressed, overpowered, perhaps,
with the sense of being anything as large and terrible as inquirer and
universalist.

But Worth was too true a son of the army to leave a brooding damsel long
alone in the corner. "You seen the new cow?" was his friendly approach.

"Why, I don't believe I have," she confessed.

"I s'pose you've seen the chickens?" he asked, a trifle condescendingly.

Ann shamefacedly confessed that she had not as yet seen the chickens.

He took a step backward for the weighty, crushing: "Well, you've seen the
_horses_, haven't you?"

"Aunt Kate--Aunt Kate!" he called peremptorily, as Ann humbly shook her
head, "Miss Ann's not seen the cow--or the, chickens--nor the horses!"

"Isn't it scandalous?" agreed Kate. "It shows what sort of hostess I am,
doesn't it? But you see, Worth, I thought as long as you were coming so
soon you could do the honors of the stables. I think it's always a little
more satisfactory to have a man do those things."

"I'll take you now," announced Worth, in manner which brooked neither
delay nor gratitude.

And so the girl and the little boy and the two puppies, the joy of motion
freeing them from the sad weight of inquirer and universalist, started