However, Fate was annoyed at this perfect
friendship. It didn't give her enough to do,
and Fate is a restless thing with a horrible
appetite for variety. So poor Nita died one
day mysteriously, and gave her last look to
Cecil as a matter of course; and he held her
paws till the last moment, as a stanch friend
should, and laid her away decently in a
pine box in the cornfield, where he could be
shielded from public view if he chose to go
there now and then and sit beside her grave.

He went to bed very lonely, indeed, the
first night. The shack seemed to him to be
removed endless miles from the other habi-
tations of men. He seemed cut off from the
world, and ached to hear the cheerful little
barks which Nita had been in the habit of
giving him by way of good night. Her ami-
able eye with its friendly light was missing,
the gay wag of her tail was gone; all her
ridiculous ways, at which he was never tired
of laughing, were things of the past.

He lay down, busy with these thoughts,
yet so habituated to Nita's presence, that
when her weight rested upon his feet, as
usual, he felt no surprise. But after a mo-
ment it came to him that as she was dead the