At the moment I spied the pair, a great brindled cat, who sometimes ventures on the place, in spite of all the attentions paid her by the beagles, and who had been watching sparrows in the barnyard, sprang to the wall.  Zip!  There was a rush, a snarl, a hiss, and a smash!  Dog and what had been cat crashed through the sash of my Dahlia frame, and in the rebound ploughed into the soft earth that held the carnations.

The next minute Mr. Vandeveer absolutely leaped over the wall, and seeing the dog, apparently in the midst of the broken glass, turned almost apoplectic, shouting, “Ah, his legs will be cut; he’ll be ruined, and Julie will never forgive me!  He’s her best dog and cost $3000 spot cash!  Get him out, somebody, why don’t you?  What business have people to put such dangerous skylights near a public road?”

Meanwhile, as wrath arose in my throat and formed ugly words, Jupiter, a great friend of ours, who has had more comfortable meals in our kitchen during the winter than the careless kennel men would have wished to be known, sprang toward me with well-meant, if rough, caresses,—­evidently the few scratches he had amounted to nothing.  I forgave him the cat cheerfully, but my poor carnations!  They do not belong to the grovelling tribe of herbs that bend and refuse to break like portulaca, chickweed, and pusley the accursed.  Fortunately, just then, a scene of the past year, which had come to me by report, floated across my vision.  Our young hounds, Bob and Pete, in the heat of undisciplined rat-catching (for these dogs when young and unbroken will chase anything that runs), completely undermined the Vandeveers’ mushroom bed, the door of the pit having been left open!

When Mr. Vandeveer recovered himself, he began profuse apologies.  Would “send the glazier down immediately”—­“so sorry to spoil such lovely young onions and spinach!”

“What! not early vegetables, but flowers?” Oh, then he should not feel so badly.  Really, he had quite forgotten himself, but the truth was Julie thought more of her dogs and horses than even of himself, he sometimes thought,—­almost, but not quite; “ha! ha! really, don’t you know!” While, judging by the comparative behaviour of dog and man, the balance was decidedly in favour of Jupiter.  But you see I never like men who dress like ladies, I had lost my young plants, and I love dogs from mongrel all up the ladder (lap dogs excepted), so I may be prejudiced.

After Bertel had carefully removed the splintered glass from the earth, so that I could take account of my damaged stock, about half seemed to be redeemable; but even those poor seedlings looked like soldiers after battle, a limb gone here and an eye missing there.