“But how did she get the twins out, I wonder? It’s one of Pinkie Scott’s tame rabbits that live under her summer-house that they’re after though, and it’s sure to get back among the stones, and they’ll be disappointed. I must give them something to eat when they come back as a reward, just as Mr. Hugh does the little foxhounds,” and thrusting her feet into her moccasin slippers Anne stole lightly down the back stairs.
How Happy got her pups out was an undiscovered secret until Baldy found that the cooling house had a sort of switch-off burrow that led backward under the stone fence, which the faithful mother could only have made with infinite labour.
Anne opened the kitchen door by the well and stepped into the moonlight, plate in hand. The baying and yelping had ceased, but she could tell by the swishing of grass and bushes that the dogs were returning. Soon they came in sight on the garden side; the twins seemed tired and their heads drooped, while their mother encouraged first one and then the other by little licks and caresses. Of course they were both hungry and thirsty, and while the plate was being licked a window above opened and Anne’s father looked out saying, “Anne! out in your nightgown feeding puppies, or are you walking in your sleep?”
“Feeding the twins, father dear,” she called softly. “You see Happy has been teaching them the hunting and as there wasn’t any catching, giving them supper is a ‘must be.’ Mr. Hugh said so.”
Then the Winds of Night whispered wood messages in Diana’s ears and drew her long hair through their fingers, and little Oo-oo, the screech owl, laughed far off in the river woods, so that long after she was asleep the sounds turned into dreams.
As to Waddles, he stayed out all night and was discovered tired and muddy on the door-steps the next morning. When he was being brushed, Anne asked him, “Why he had not helped Happy teach the pups?” He gave her a reproachful look that said: “I’m surprised at you, mistress. I go with the men dogs; teaching pups the hunting is woman’s work.”
CHAPTER VI
TABLE BOARDERS
When Miss Letty had been two months at the Hilltop Farm everybody had fallen in love with her, twofoots and fourfoots alike. That is, everybody but Mr. Hugh; he was simply polite and tolerant, treating her new enthusiasm for dogs, horses, and outdoor things as merely the whim of a spoiled child.