At first touch of the baby's fingers the collie had become once
and for all Olive's slave. He fairly reveled in the
discomfortingly tight caress. The tug of the little hands in his
sensitive neck fur was bliss to him. Wiggling all over with
happiness he sought to lick the chubby face pressed so tight
against his ruff. From that instant Chum had a divided
allegiance. His human god was Ferris. But this fluffy
pink-and-white youngster was a mighty close second in his list of
deities.

Dorcas looked on, trembling with fear; as her little sister
romped with the adoring dog. And she heaved a sigh of relief when
at last they were clear of the farm without mishap to the baby.
For Olive had been dearer to Dorcas, from birth, than anyone or
anything else on earth. To the baby sister alone Dorcas ceased to
be the grave-eyed and self-assured Lady of Quality, and became a
meek and worshiping devotee.

When Link Ferris at last mustered courage to ask Dorcas Chatham
to marry him his form of proposal would have been ruled out of
any novel or play. It consisted chiefly of a mouthful of
half-swallowed, half-exploded words, spoken all in one panic
breath, to the accompaniment of a mortal fear that shook him to
the marrow.

Any other words, thus mouthed and gargled, would have required a
full college of languages to translate them. But the speech was
along a line perfectly familiar to every woman since Eve. And
Dorcas understood. She would have understood had Link voiced his