“Some one gave him to me.  I suppose he was not a fine dog—­not full-blooded.  But that didn’t matter. You know that we don’t love dogs for their blood.  We love them for the way they look out of their eyes, and the way they wag their tails.  I can’t tell you what this dog meant to me—­something to love—­something that loved me—­some one to play with—­a companion—­a friend—­something that didn’t have anything to do with my father’s church!

“He used to feel so sorry when I had to sit learning Bible verses.  Sometimes he would put his two paws up on my lap and try to push the Bible away.  I loved him for that.  And when at last I could put it away he would dance round me with little yelps of joy.  He warmed something in me.  He kept something alive.

“And then one day when I came home from a missionary meeting where I had read a paper telling how cruelly young girls were treated by their parents in India, and how there was no joy and love and beauty in their lives, I—­” Ann hid her face and it was a drawn, grayish face she raised after a minute—­“Tono was not there.  I called and called him.  My father was writing a sermon.  He let me go on calling.  I could not understand it.  Tono always came running down the walk, wagging his tail and giving his little barks of joy when I came.  It had made coming home seem different from what it had ever seemed before.  But that day he was not there watching for me.  My father let me go on calling for a long time.  At last he came to the door and said—­’Please stop that unseemly noise.  The dog has been sent away.’  ‘Sent away?’ I whispered.  ‘What do you mean?’ ’I mean that I have seen fit to dispose of him,’ he answered.  I was trembling all over.  ‘What right had you to dispose of him?’ I wanted to know.  ‘He wasn’t your dog—­’ The answer was that I was to go up to my room and learn Bible verses until the Lord chastened my spirit.  Then I said things.  I would not learn Bible verses.  I would have my dog.  It ended”—­Ann was trembling uncontrollably—­“it ended with the rod being unspared.  God’s forgiveness was invoked with each stroke.”

She was digging her finger nails into her palms.  Katie put her arms around her.  “I wouldn’t, Ann dear—­it isn’t worth while.  It’s all over now.  Wouldn’t it be better to forget?”

“No, I want to tell you.  Some day I may try to tell you other things.  I want this to try to explain them.  Loving dogs, you will understand this—­better than you could some other things.

“The dog had been given away to some one who lived in the country.  It was because I had played with him the Sunday morning before and had been late to Sunday-school.”

Her voice was dry and hard; it was from Katie there came the exclamation of protest and contempt.

“No one except one who loves dogs as you do would know what it meant.  Even you can’t quite know.  For Tono was all I had.  He—­”