Even Daisy relented: 'Well—a very plain one, then. Let me give it to him, auntie?'
The biscuit was procured, and Daisy, with an express intimation that this was a very particular indulgence, tendered it to the deserving terrier.
He half raised his head, sniffed at it—and then fell back again with another weary little sigh. Daisy felt rather crushed. 'I'm afraid he's cross with me,' she said; 'you try, Aunt Sophy.' Aunt Sophy tried, but with no better success, though Don wagged his tail feebly to express that he was not actuated by any personal feeling in the matter—he had no appetite, that was all.
'Daisy,' said Miss Millikin, with something more like anger than she generally showed, 'I was very wrong to listen to you about the diet. It's perfectly plain to me that by checking Don's appetite as we have we have done him serious harm. You can see for yourself that he is past eating anything at all now. Cook told me to-day that he had scarcely touched his meals lately. And yet he's stouter than ever—isn't he?'
Daisy was forced to allow that this was so. 'But what can it be?' she said.
'It's disease,' said her aunt, very solemnly. 'I've read over and over again that corpulence has nothing whatever to do with the amount of food one eats. And, oh! Daisy, I don't want to blame you, dear—but I'm afraid we have been depriving him of the nourishing things he really needed to enable him to struggle against the complaint!'
Poor Daisy was overcome by remorse as she knelt over the recumbent Don. 'Oh, darling Don,' she said, 'I didn't mean it—you know I didn't, don't you? You must get well and forgive me! I tell you what, aunt,' she said as she rose to her feet, 'you know you said I might drive you over in the pony cart to that tennis-party at the Netherbys to-morrow. Well, young Mr. Netherby is rather a "doggy" sort of man, and nice too. Suppose we take Don with us and ask him to tell us plainly whether he has anything dreadful the matter with him?'
Miss Millikin consented, though she did not pretend to hope much from Mr. Netherby's skill. 'I'm afraid,' she said, with a sigh, 'that only a very clever veterinary surgeon would find out what really is the matter with Don. But you can try, my dear.'
The following afternoon Miss Millikin entrusted herself and Don to Daisy's driving, not without some nervous misgivings.