A hot mist of tears sprang into the boy's eyes. Lass, with the queer intuition that tells a female collie when her master is unhappy, whined softly and licked his clenched hand. "I--aw, PLEASE, Ma!" he begged chokingly. "PLEASE! It's--it's my birthday, and everything. Please let me keep her. I--I love her better than 'most anything there is. Can't I please keep her? Please!" "You heard what I said," returned his mother curtly. The washerwoman, who one day a week lightened Mrs. Hazen's household labors, waddled into view from behind the billows of wind-swirled clothes. She was an excellent person, and was built for endurance rather than for speed. At sight of Lass she paused in real interest. "My!" she exclaimed with flattering approval. "So you got your dog, did you? You didn't waste no time. And he's sure a handsome little critter. Whatcher goin' to call him?" "It's not a him, Irene," contradicted Mrs. Hazen, with another modest lowering of her strong voice. "It's a HER. And I'm sending Dick back with her, to where she came from. I've got my opinion of people who will take advantage of a child's ignorance, by palming off a horrid female dog on him, too. Take her away, Dick. I won't have her here another minute. You hear me?" "Please, Ma!" stammered Dick, battling with his desire to cry. "Aw, PLEASE! I--I--" "Your ma's right, Dick," chimed in the washerwoman, her first interested glance at the puppy changing to one of refined and lofty scorn. "Take her back. You don't want any female dogs around. No nice folks do." "Why not?" demanded the boy in sudden hopeless anger as he pressed lovingly the nose Lass thrust so comfortingly into his hand. "WHY don't we want a female dog around? Folks have female cats around them, and female women. Why isn't a female dog--" "That will do, Dick!" broke in his shocked mother. "Take her away." "I won't," said the boy, speaking very slowly, and with no excitement at all. A slap on the side of his head, from his mother's punitive palm, made him stagger a little. Her hand was upraised for a second installment of rebellion-quelling--when a slender little body flashed through the air and landed heavily against her chest. A set of white puppy-teeth all but grazed her wrathful red face. Lass, who never before had known the impulse to attack, had jumped to the rescue of the beaten youngster whom she had adopted as her god. The woman screeched in terror. Dick flung an arm about the furry whirlwind that was seeking to avenge his punishment, and pulled the dog back to his side. Mrs. Hazen's shriek, and the obbligato accompaniment of the washerwoman, made an approaching man quicken his steps as he strolled around the side of the house. The newcomer was Dick's father, superintendent of the local bottling works. On his way home to lunch, he walked in on a scene of hysteria. "Kill her, sir!" bawled the washerwoman, at sight of him. "Kill her! She's a mad dog. She just tried to kill Miz' Hazen!"