It was after lunch that the Little Colonel came up-stairs carrying the diary, now half-filled with the record of their journeying.

“Put it all down in the book, Papa Jack,” she demanded.  “I’ll nevah forget to my dyin’ day, but I want it written down heah in black and white that Hero saved me!”

CHAPTER IV.

HERO’S STORY

Late that afternoon the Major sat out in the shady courtyard of the hotel, where vines, potted plants, and a fountain made a cool green garden spot.  He was thinking of his little daughter, who had been dead many long years.  The American child, whom his dog had rescued from the runaway in the morning, was wonderfully like her.  She had the same fair hair, he thought, that had been his little Christine’s great beauty; the same delicate, wild-rose pink in her cheeks, the same mischievous smile dimpling her laughing face.  But Christine’s eyes had not been a starry hazel like the Little Colonel’s.  They were blue as the flax-flowers she used to gather—­thirty, was it?  No, forty years ago.

As he counted the years, the thought came to him like a pain that he was an old, old man now, all alone in the world, save for a dog, and a niece whom he scarcely knew and seldom saw.

As he sat there with his head bowed down, dreaming over his past, the Little Colonel came out into the courtyard.  She had dressed early and gone down to the reading-room to wait until her mother was ready for dinner, but catching sight of the Major through the long glass doors, she laid down her book.  The lonely expression of his furrowed face, the bowed head, and the empty sleeve appealed to her strongly.

“I believe I’ll go out and talk to him,” she thought.  “If grandfathah were away off in a strange land by himself like that, I’d want somebody to cheer him up.”

It is always good to feel that one is welcome, and Lloyd was glad that she had ventured into the courtyard, when she saw the smile that lighted the Major’s face at sight of her, and when the dog, rising at her approach, came forward joyfully wagging his tail.

The conversation was easy to begin, with Hero for a subject.  There were many things she wanted to know about him:  how he happened to belong to the Major; what country he came from; why he was called a St. Bernard, and if the Major had ever owned any other dogs.

After a few questions it all came about as she had hoped it would.  The old man settled himself back in his chair, thought a moment, and then began at the first of his acquaintance with St. Bernard dogs, as if he were reading a story from a book.