The next morning when Anne came downstairs Cadence was lying on the steps with her back to the house. Anne called her and clapped her hands together, but she did not stir, yet the moment Anne’s footsteps jarred the boards Cadence turned and came to her side. Then the truth flashed upon Anne, the little hound was neither stupid nor disobedient, but almost stone deaf. She could not hear the voice, but felt the sound as it were from the footstep. “There, I told Miss Jule that you weren’t wicked, but that you couldn’t understand all that shouting and to-heeling, you dear little abused thing. Now I’ll know exactly how to treat you and what to expect.” And Anne held the pretty, soft paws in one hand while she lifted the dog’s face so that it might _see_ what she said. Truly, then, Cadence understood once and for all, and when puzzled always looked in her mistress’s face. When Miss Jule heard the story, she questioned all at the Horse Farm and about the Kennels closely, and found that once, when Cadence was a pup of less than a year, a gun had burst quite close to her head. “Now,” said Anne, triumphantly, “you see why she was gun shy, and deaf, and everything. You know, Miss Jule, animals are hardly ever bad; it’s mostly something what we’ve done ourselves, and it’s being a kennel dog, too. You see you can never be really intimate with them, and know their troubles as I do Waddles.” Miss Jule sighed, for she knew it was true. * * * * * From that day onward Cadence was a new dog, no longer sad eyed, though she knew mighty well how to plead for what she wanted with those golden brown eyes, but the most joyous thing alive. She was pleased if she had a bone, or equally pleased with a dog biscuit, happy to go to walk, happy to stay at home; her face wore a perpetual smile, and her tail a ceaseless wag. “Let us call her something different from that old kennel name, even if she can’t hear it,” said Anne, one day six months later, as they stood watching Cadence tending her first children, the fascinating twins, Jack and Jill, and teaching them to lap milk. “Yes,” assented Tommy, who stood by, pondering as to how soon the pups might be harnessed to a toy cart; “let’s call her _Happy_, she is always _so_ glad.” And Happy it is--Mrs. Happy Waddles of Happy Hall. “Now there’s something else between us besides not understanding things when we are shut up,” said Anne, making the hound stand up and put both paws in her lap. “We are both named one thing and called another; for you probably don’t know, my dear, unless Waddles has told you, that my true name is Diana, after the hunting lady, and really I think some night this fall I’ll live up to it and go out with you and Waddles to hunt rabbits.” So this is the annal of the coming of Happy, wife of Waddles, Mayor of Dogtown. CHAPTER II MISS LETTY AND HAMLET