"There are lots of dogs like him," I said. "He is lost—we must take him in for the night. Oh, Persis, just fancy—if he is really quite lost, we may have to keep him for good. Mamma might perhaps let us. Oh, Persis!"
We took him in with us and called to mamma to come out to the door to look at him. She saw what a beauty he was at once, and stroked his head and called him "poor doggie," for, as I said, she is always kind to animals, though she doesn't care for pets.
"We must take him in for the night any way," she said. "Perhaps in the morning we may find out where he comes from."
There was an empty kennel in the yard, and we found some nice clean hay in the hampers that we had brought with groceries from London. And the cook gave us some scraps and one or two big bones. So "Bruno," as of course we called him, was made very comfortable.
And you can fancy—no, I really—I don't think you can—the state of excitement in which Persis and I went to bed.
Chapter III
We got up very early indeed the next morning, and of course we both rushed straight to the yard. We had had a dreadful feeling that perhaps somebody would have come to claim the dog, and that we should find him gone. But no—there he was, the beauty, and as soon as ever he saw us, out he came wagging his dear tail and looking as pleased as pleased.
"Do you see how he knows us already, Archie?" said Persis. "Isn't he too sweet? Couldn't you really think the fairies had sent him to be our very own?"
We could scarcely eat any breakfast, and the moment it was over we dragged mamma out to look at him. She was as nearly much taken with him as we were, we could see, only she said one thing which I wished she hadn't.
"How unhappy his owners must be at having lost him!" it was.