With each step the hind legs of a wriggling puppy slipped a little farther through Worth’s arms.  When finally he stood before them only a big puppy head was visible underneath each shoulder.  Approaching Ann, then backing around, he let one squirming pair of legs rest on her lap, freed his arm, and Ann had the puppy.  “You can play with him a little while,” he remarked graciously.

“Worth,” said Katie, “it is unto my friend Miss Forrest, known in the intimacies of the household as Miss Ann, that you have just made this tender offering.”

Worth took firm hold on his remaining puppy and stood there surveying Ann.  “I came last night,” he volunteered, after what seemed satisfactory inspection.

Ann just smiled at him, rumpling the puppy’s soft woolly coat.

“How long you been here?” he asked cordially.

“Just two days,” she told him.

“I’m going to stay all summer,” he announced, hoisting his puppy a little higher.

“That’s nice,” said Ann; her puppy was climbing too.

“How long you goin’ to stay?” he wanted to know.

“Miss Ann is going to stay just as long as we are real nice to her, Worthie,” said Katie, looking up from the magazine she was cutting.

“She can play with the puppies every morning, Aunt Kate,” he cried in a fervent burst of hospitality.

“You got a dog at home?” he asked of Ann.

At the silence, Katie looked up.  The puppy was now cuddled upon Ann’s breast, her two arms about it.  As she shook her head her chin brushed the soft puppy fur—­then buried itself in it.  Her eyes deepened.

“It must be just the dreadfulest thing there is not to have a dog,” Worth condoled.

There was no response.  The puppy’s head was on Ann’s shoulder.  He was ambitious to mount to her face.

“Didn’t you never have a dog?” Worth asked, drawling it out tragically.

The head nodded yes, but the eyes did not grow any more glad at thought of once having had a dog.

Worth took a step nearer and lay an awed hand upon her arm.  “Did he—­die?”

She nodded.  Her face had grown less sorrowful than hard.  It was the look of that first day.

Worth shook his head slowly to express deep melancholy.  “It’s awful—­to have ’em die.  Mine died once.  I cried and cried and cried.  Then papa got me a bigger one.”

He waited for confidences which did not come.  Ann was holding the puppy tight.

“Didn’t your papa get you ’nother one?” he asked, as one searching for the best.

“Worth dear,” called Katie, “let’s talk about the live puppies.  There are so many live puppies in the world.  And just see how the puppy loves Miss Ann.”

“And Miss Ann loves the puppy.  Mustn’t squeeze him too tight,” he admonished.  “Watts says it’s bad for ’em to squeeze ’em.  Watts knows just everything ’bout puppies.  He knows when they have got to eat and when they have got to sleep, and when they ought to have a bath.  Do you suppose, Aunt Kate, we’ll ever know as much as Watts?”