Page:While Caroline Was Growing.djvu/22

 Another shrill whistle, and the dog returned, limping on three legs, his ears drooping, his stumpy tail dejected. He paused in the middle of the walk, and at a sharp clap, as of two hands, he dropped limply on his side, rolled to his back, and stiffened there pathetically, his eyes closed.

Caroline's chin quivered; Katy's position on the ladder was frankly that of one who has paid for an orchestra-chair; Maggie had left the cookies and stood grinning in the kitchen door; an aunt appeared in an upper window.

One more clap, and the actor returned to life and left them, but only for a moment. He was back again, erect and smiling, a small wicker basket balanced on his paws. Marching sedately up to Maggie, he paused, and glanced politely down at the basket, then up at her.

Flesh and blood could not resist him. Hastily tugging out from her petticoat a bulging pocket-book, she deposited a dime in the basket; the aunt, with extraordinary accuracy, dropped a five-cent piece from the window; Katy mourned her distance from her own financial center, and Caroline ran for her bank. It was a practical