"Link!" she called down to the wretched man at the front door.
"When you and Dorcas gets married together, I'm comin' to live
wiv you! Then I can play wiv Chummie all I want to!"

Link bolted out to the street in the midst of her announcement.
And, so occupied was he in trying to swallow a lump in his own
throat, he failed to hear the sound of stifled sobbing from
behind a locked door somewhere in the upper reaches of the house.

As the night wore on, the sleepless girl sought to comfort
herself in the thought that Link had not definitely refused her
terms. A night's reflection and an attitude of unbending
aloofness on her own part might well bring him to a surrender.

Perhaps it was something in Link Ferris's dejected gait, as he
turned into his own lane that night, perhaps it was the instinct
which tells a collie when a loved human is unhappy--but Chum was
at once aware of his master's woe. The dog, at first sound of
Link's approaching steps, bounded from his vigil place on the
porch and frisked joyously through the darkness to meet him. He
sent forth a trumpeting bark of welcome as he ran.

Then--fifty feet from the oncoming man--the big collie halted and
stood for an instant with ears cocked and eyes troubled. After
which he resumed his advance; but at a solemn trot and with
downcast mien. As he reached Link, the collie whined softly under
his breath, gazing wistfully up into Ferris's face and then
thrusting his cold nose lovingly into one of the man's loose-
hanging hands.