As for Spice, he had never seemed so gay and full of life, frisking lightly about the children whenever Edith's trembling hands would let him go, and twirling himself round and round so swiftly as to fairly make one dizzy to behold.
When Mrs. Townsend observed this, she had taken it as a sign of hopeless depravity, but to Harry it was a convincing proof that Spice had not done the deed charged to him.
"You know, Edith," he would say, over and over again, "how he hangs his head, puts his tail between his legs, and tries to slink away whenever he's done wrong, and I'm sure he knows it isn't proper to bite Mrs. Townsend's baby. Oh, why did she ever bring it over here?" and Harry groaned dismally as he realized the impossibility of bringing their neighbor to look at the affair in the light he did.
Well, the time of respite passed all too quickly away, and when Mr. Farr came home at six, the case was laid before him in all its bearings; but what could he do?
"You've no positive proof that Spice did not bite the baby," he said, when Harry and Edith called upon him to avenge them of their wrongs, "whereas Mrs. Townsend thinks she has pretty sure evidence that her baby was bitten. Besides—" But just then the door-bell rang, and Mr. Townsend and Win were ushered in, the latter carrying a gun, at sight of which Edith first shuddered, and then began to cry.
"STOP! STOP! OH, STOP!"
After a few words with Mr. Farr, Mr. Townsend suggested that, as it was a cruel duty he had come to perform, they had better go through with it as quickly as possible; so a rope was produced, tied to the dog's collar, and then, having received a last tearful embrace from each one in the family, Spice was led out into the back yard by their neighbor, Win following close behind with the gun.
Mrs. Farr at once stuffed her ears with cotton; her husband went to the furthest corner of the library, and took down the most absorbing book he could find; Harry fled to his room in the third story, and Edith buried her face in the sofa cushions; while the girls in the kitchen clattered tin pans about at a terrific rate for a few moments, and then, frightened at their own noise, stopped to listen.
For five minutes there was a dead silence both inside the house and out, when suddenly Edith screamed loud and long, and leaping up from the lounge, rushed out into the yard, wildly waving a pair of button-hole scissors covered with blood.