And after that, there never, for some days, came a knock at the door, or the sound of a strange voice in the kitchen, without our trembling. And we never came in from a walk with Bruno without getting cold all over at the thought that perhaps some one might be waiting for him.
But nothing of the sort did happen. And time went on, till it grew to be nearly three weeks that our dear dog had been with us.
One evening papa came to us in the yard when we were saying good-night to Bruno.
"I suppose you're getting to think him quite your own," he said. "It certainly does not seem as if he were going to be owned. But what will mamma say to taking him home with us—eh, little people?"
"I don't think she'll mind," said Persis. "She loves him too—awfully. And Archie and I are full of plans about how to manage him in London."
"Ah, indeed," said papa. "Well, one of the first things to be done, it seems to me," he went on, "is to get him a collar," and he drew a yard measure out of his pocket and measured Bruno's neck. "I am going up to town to-morrow for two nights," he then told us. "You two can come to meet me at the station when I come back, with Eliza, of course, and this fellow, and you shall see what I can get in the way of a collar. I'll tell mamma the train, and you can all drive home with me."
We thanked papa—it was very kind of him, and we said we'd like to go to meet him very much. But things seldom turn out as one expects. The day papa was to come mamma had to go to the little town near the station herself—something about a washerwoman it was—so she ordered a carriage, and we drove over with her. We were all at the station together to meet papa, and when he came he had brought the loveliest collar for Bruno—with his name on, and ours, and our address in London!
"We won't risk losing him," papa said.
Then he asked us if we wouldn't rather walk home, and we said we should, as we had driven there, and mamma didn't mind going back alone. So we set off, us two and papa. And we were so happy and so sure now of Bruno being ours, that we didn't notice that papa took the way down the lane that we had been once before.
We never noticed it, till we were close to the gate of the farm—the very farm where we had got milk—the very gate where—-