"Yes?"
"I was waked by a sheep coughing outside the garden."
Miriam burst out laughing. "Did you think it was Zebedee?" She laughed a great deal more than was necessary. "Now she's putting on her never-smiled-again expression! Will he be back before I go away?"
Helen looked at her dumbly. She heard the garden gate shutting behind John and Zebedee, Rupert and Miriam, with a clang which seemed to forbid return, and her dread of Zebedee's going became sharper, though beneath her dread there lay the courage she had promised him.
"And there will be the dog," she found herself saying aloud.
The animal, when he arrived, leapt from the dog-cart in which he had been unwillingly conveyed and proved to be an Airedale, guaranteed to be a perfect watch-dog and suspicious of all strangers.
Proudly, Zebedee delivered himself of these recommendations.
"He's trained, thoroughly trained to bite. And he's enormously strong. Just look at his neck! Look at his teeth—get through anything."
Helen was kneeling to the dog and asking, "Are you sure he'll bite people? He seems to like me very much."
"I've been telling him about you. My precious child, you can't have a dog who leaps at people unprovoked. He'd be a public danger. You must say 'Rats!' or something like that when you want him to attack."