A DOG OF FLANDERS. 89

and say to himself, “It is best so.
The lad is all but a beggar, and full
of idle, dreaming fooleries. Who
knows what mischief might not come
of itinthe future? So he was wise in
his generation, and would not have
the door unbarred, except upon rare
and formal occasions, which seemed
to have neither warmth nor mirth in
them to the two children, who had
been accustomed so long to a daily
gleeful, careless, happy interchange
of greeting, speech, and pastime, with
no other watcher of their sports
or auditor of their fancies than Pa-
trasche, sagely shaking the brazen
bells of his collar, and. responding
with all a dog’s swift sympathies to
their every change of mood.