“Thin ’tis a pup. You see, Mum, with a pup, ’tis this way. The feet starts first, an’ the pup grows up to ’em, like. Av they match him, he’s grown. Av he has arctics on, he’s a pup.” * * * * * Hector’s growth in the next six months dissipated all doubts as to his puphood. He became a four–legged Colossus, martial toward cats, aggressive toward the tradesmen at the wicket–gate, impartially affectionate toward all the household, and voracious beyond all imagining. But he might have eaten the gentle ladies out of house and home, and they would never have dreamed of protesting. The house had found a Head—even a Head above Miss Pellicoe. The deposed monarch gloried in her subjection. She said “Hector likes this,” or “Hector likes that,” with the tone of submissive deference in which you may hear a good wife say, “Mr. Smith _will not_ eat cold boiled mutton,” or “Mr. Smith is very particular about his shirt–bosoms.” As for Miss Angela, she never looked at Hector, gamboling about the back–yard in all his superabundance of strength and vitality, without feeling a half–agreeable nervous shock, and a flutter of the heart. He stood for her as the type of that vast outside world of puissant manhood of which she had known but two specimens—her father and Cousin Hector. Perhaps, in the old days, if Cousin Hector had not been so engrossed in frivolity and making of practical jokes, he might have learned of something to his advantage. But he never did. * * * * * For the first time in her life, Miss Angela found herself left to watch the house through the horrors of the Fourth of July. This had always been Miss Pellicoe’s duty; but this year Miss Pellicoe failed to come back from the quiet place in the Catskills, where no children were admitted, and where the Pellicoe family, two at a time, spent the Summer in the society of other old maids and of aged widows. [Illustration] “I feel that you are safe with Hector,” she wrote. Alack and alack for Miss Pellicoe’s faith in Hector! The first fire–cracker filled him with excitement, and before the noises of the day had fairly begun, he was careering around the yard, barking in uncontrollable frenzy. At twelve o’clock, when the butcher–boy came with the chops for luncheon, Hector bounded through the open wicket, right into the arms of a dog–catcher. Miss Angela wrung her hands as she gazed from her window and saw the Head of the House cast into the cage with a dozen curs of the street and driven rapidly off. In her lorn anguish she sought the functionary who was known in the house as “Miss Pellicoe’s policeman.” “Be aisy, Miss,” he said. “Av the dog is worth five dollars, say, to yez, I have a friend will get him out for th’ accommodation.” “Oh, take it, take it!” cried Miss Angela, trembling and weeping. * * * * *