But there was just one thing that gave him a homely feeling. And oh! he felt it so good that it was so! As they turned in at the gate he heard a familiar sound. It was the hysteric sniffing and jumping and yelping whines of welcome of a dog—a poor, exiled doggie, whose kennel was kept close by the gate, probably to guard it. He was fastened by a chain, and evidently, being a friendly, sociable creature, did not like being kept in this lonely place and not allowed to roam with the world. He could not have friendly fights and associates, and he could not rush about and jump on ladies’ dresses and gentlemen’s clothes and leave his dusty or muddy affectionate paw-marks all over them. And so he was not happy, and when he heard footsteps approaching always strained at his chain, and sniffed and whined. As these returning carriages belonged to his own domestic circle he almost went wild with joy, and leaped and yelped and did his best to make somebody speak to him. He was adoringly fond of Lady Aileen, who scarcely ever noticed him at all, but once or twice had said “Good fellow! Nice dog!” as she went by, and once had come and looked at him and given him two whole pats, while he had wriggled and fawned himself nearly into hysterics of dog delight. And so it happened that as the carriage turned into the beautiful gateway Piccino heard this sound he knew—that loving, eager, pleading dog voice, which is as much Italian as it is English, and as much peasant as it is noble. The dogs in the hovels near Ceriani spoke just as Lady Aileen’s dog did, and asked for just the same thing—that human things should love them a little and believe that they themselves love a great deal. And Piccino, who was only a beautiful little baby animal himself, understood it vaguely, and was somehow reminded of his friend the donkey, and felt not quite so many hundred miles from home and the tumble-down stable and Maria. He involuntarily lifted his soft, dirty, blooming face to Greggs in the dark. “_A chi il cane?_” he said. (Whose dog is that?) “What’s that he’s saying?” said Greggs to the coachman. “Must be something about the dog,” answered Hepburn. “He said something or other about a carney, and carney means dog. It’s a deuce of a language to make out.” And so, not being answered, Piccino could only resign himself, and, as the carriage rolled up the drive, listen to the familiar homely dog sound and wish he could get down and go to the kennel. And then the carriage stopped before the door. And the door was thrown open by a liveried servant, and showed the brilliantly lighted hall, where there were beautiful pictures and ornaments, and curious things hung on the walls, and rich rugs on the floor, and quaint seats and bits of furniture about, so that to Piccino it looked like a grand room. Lady Aileen spoke to the footman at the door. “Send Nicholson to me,” she said. “Bring the child into the hall,” she said to Greggs.