So Bobby very sensibly ate a good supper in the lassie's company
and, grateful for that and for her sympathy, submitted to her shy
petting. But after the shepherds and dogs were gone and the
farmer had come in again from an overseeing look about the place
the little dog got up, trotted to the door, and lay down by it.
The lassie followed him. With two small, plump hands she pushed
Bobby's silver veil back, held his muzzle and looked into his
sad, brown eyes.

"Oh, mither, mither, Bobby's greetin'," she cried.

"Nae, bonny wee, a sma' dog canna greet."

"Ay, he's greetin' sair!" A sudden, sweet little sound was
dropped on Bobby's head.

"Ye shouldna kiss the bit dog, bairnie. He isna like a human
body."

"Ay, a wee kiss is gude for 'im. Faither, he greets so I canna
thole it." The child fled to comforting arms in the inglenook and
cried herself to sleep. The gude wife knitted, and the gude mon
smoked by the pleasant fire. The only sound in the room was the
ticking of the wag at the wa' clock, for burning peat makes no
noise at all, only a pungent whiff in the nostrils, the memory of
which gives a Scotch laddie abroad a fit of hamesickness. Bobby
lay very still and watchful by the door. The farmer served his
astonishing news in dramatic bits.

"Auld Jock's deid." Bobby stirred at that, and flattened out on