“Hello, mammy,” he said.  “Where is my dog Duke?”

Maggie caught sight of Beth’s eyes, and intuitively felt the child’s solicitude.  She was up in arms in a minute.

“Yo’ needn’t mammy me; I ain’t yo’r mammy; and what’s more if I cotch yo’ takin’ any dog from here, I’se gwineter give yo’ the worst frailin’ yo’ ever had.  So yo’ jes’ bettah be skeedadlin’.”

At this instant, Mrs. Davenport came to the door.

“If you wish Duke, you’ll have to come into the house and get him.  He’s hiding behind the bed in the spare room, and I can’t get him to come out.”

Brown, unmindful of Maggie’s threat, perhaps realizing that her bark was worse than her bite, went with Mrs. Davenport to the spare room.  Beth followed after them.  Brown got down upon his knees and tried to entice the dog out.  Duke, however, would not budge.

“Beth, if you called him perhaps he’d come,” suggested Mrs. Davenport.

Beth burst into tears.  “Mamma, I can’t do it.  It breaks my heart to have him go.”

The man arose.  There was a kindlier light in his eyes.  “Little un, get him for me and I’ll promise not to whip him.”

“Dear,” whispered Mrs. Davenport, “call him; it is a kindness to Duke.  He belongs to the man.”

So Beth called, and immediately Duke answered the summons.  However, he shrank from his owner.

“Duke,” said Beth, “we’d like to keep you, but we can’t.  You must go quietly.”

Mr. Brown had a leather collar which he fastened on the dog.  Then he led him quietly away.  Beth cried, and even Mrs. Davenport’s eyes were suspiciously moist.

That night it rained, and the Davenports had a wood-fire around which they gathered.  Beth was just saying, “I wish I could have kept Duke,” when she was interrupted by a noise upon the piazza.

“It sounds like a convict with chains,” suggested Marian, who had a lively imagination.

Beth looked towards the front window and cried: 

“It’s Duke.”

Sure enough, with his paws upon the window ledge, and his great intelligent eyes looking at them, there was Duke looking very triumphant.

Marian and Beth rushed to the front door, and called him into the house.  He came all wet and muddy, dragging a great chain which he had evidently broken.  Notwithstanding his drabbled condition, both children were demonstrative in their greeting, and their parents could not find it in their hearts to object.  In fact, Duke was brought in beside the fire and made much of that night.

The next forenoon his owner came to carry Duke away.  In leaving, he remarked to Maggie that he’d see—­well, that the dog didn’t get away again.

That day passed without any new developments, but the next morning the Davenport family was wakened by a series of barks.

Marian and Beth immediately jumped out of bed, and rushed out upon the upper piazza.  In the yard below, looking as conscious as a truant child, was Duke.