The Skye terrier left off circling around the smouldering ruins, and bounded towards her dusky friend, and leaped upon him with a yelp of welcome and a whine of sorrow.
"Oh, Nelly! Nelly! what has happened?" cried Joe.
The little dog howled dismally in answer.
"Yes, I know what you would say. I understand. The devil has blown up the Haunted Chapel," said Joe.
She lifted up her nose and her voice in a woe-begone howl of assent.
"Just so; but oh! Nelly! Nelly Brown! where is the master and the mistress?"
She answered by a cry of agony, and ran back to the ruins, and re-commenced her pawing and whining.
"Ah, yes! just so; buried under all that there," groaned Joe.
But Nelly ran back to him, barking emphatically, and then forward to the ruins, and then, seeing that he still stood there, back to him again, with the most eloquent barks, that seemed to assure him that her master and mistress were under the mass, and at length to ask him what was the use of his being a man, if he could not dig them out.
Never did man and dog understand each other better. Joe replied to Nelly as if she had spoken in the best approved English.