Lady. As tenderly as if he were picking up a ball of needles, he
caught her by the scruff of the neck, lifting her in the air and
depositing her at the Mistress's feet.

The puppy repaid this life-saving exploit by growling still more
wrathfully and by snapping in helpless menace at the big dog's
nose. But Lad was in no wise offended. Deaf to the praise of the
Mistress,--a praise which ordinarily threw him into transports of
embarrassed delight,--he stood over the rescued pup; every inch
of his magnificent body vibrant with homage and protectiveness.

From that hour, Lad was the adoring slave of Lady.

He watched over her, in her increasingly active rambles about the
Place. Always, on the advent of doubtful strangers, he interposed
his own furry bulk between her and possible kidnaping. He stood
beside her as she lapped her bread-and-milk or as she chewed
laboriously at her fragment of dog-biscuit.

At such times, he proved himself the mortal foe of Peter Grimm,
the Mistress's temperamental gray kitten, with whom he was
ordinarily on very comfortable terms. Peter Grimm was the one
creature on the Place whom Lady feared. On the day after her
arrival, she essayed to worry the haughty catkin. And, a second
later, the puppy was nursing a brace of deep red scratches at the
tip of her inquiring black nostrils.

Thereafter, she gave Peter Grimm a wide berth. And the cat was
wont to take advantage of this dread by making forays on Lady's
supper dish. But, ever, Lad would swoop down upon the marauder,