Thereafter, she gave Peter Grimm a wide berth. And the cat was wont to take advantage of this dread by making forays on Lady's supper dish. But, ever, Lad would swoop down upon the marauder, as Lady cowered whimperingly back on her haunches; and would harry the indignant cat up the nearest tree; herding her there until Lady had licked the dish clean. Lad went further, in his fealty to the puppy. Sacrificing his own regal dignity, he would romp with her, at times when it would have been far more comfortable to drowse. He bore, without murmur, her growling assaults on his food; amusedly standing aside while she annexed his supper's choicest bits. He endured, too, her occasional flurries of hot temper; and made no protest when Lady chose to wreak some grievance against life by flying at him with bristling ruff and jaws asnarl. Her keen little milk teeth hurt like the mischief, when they dug into his ears or his paws, in one of these rage-gusts. But he did not resent the pain or the indignity by so much as drawing back out of harm's way. And, afterward, when quick repentance replaced anger and she strove to make friends with him again, Lad was inordinately happy. To both the Mistress and the Master, from the very outset, it was plain that Lady was not in any way such a dog as their beloved Lad. She was as temperamental as Peter Grimm himself. She had hair-trigger nerves, a swirlingly uncertain temper that was scarce atoned for by her charm and lovableness; and she lacked Lad's stanchness and elusive semi-human quality. The two were as different in nature as it is possible for a couple of well-brought-up thoroughbred collies to be. And the humans' hearts did not go out to Lady as to Lad. Still, she was an ideal pet, in many ways. And, Lad's utter devotion to her was a full set of credentials, by itself. Autumn froze into winter. The trees turned into naked black ghosts; or, rather, into many-stringed harps whereon the northwest gales alternately shrieked and roared. The fire-blue lake was a sheet of leaden ice, twenty inches thick. The fields showed sere and grayly lifeless in the patches between sodden snow-swathes. Nature had flown south, with the birds; leaving the northern world a lifeless and empty husk, as deserted as last summer's robin-nests. Lady, in these drear months of a dead world, changed as rapidly as had the smiling Place. From a shapeless gray-gold fuzzy baby, she grew lank and leggy. The indeterminate fuzz was buried under a shimmering gold-and-white coat of much beauty. The muskrat face lengthened and grew delicately graceful, with its long muzzle and exquisite profile.