Vi, who had been devoting herself in motherly fashion to a favorite doll, laid it aside to hear what was said; but Harold was playing with Bruno, who seemed hardly yet to have recovered from his wonder at not finding the strange canine intruder who had so roused his ire.
Harold had climbed upon his back, and with his arms around his neck, was talking to him in an undertone.

"Now you's my horse, Bruno; let's go ridin' like papa and Beppo." The dog started toward the door.

"With all my heart, little master; which way shall we go ?" "Why, Bruno, you s'prise me! can you talk ?" cried the little fellow in great delight.

"Why didn't you begin sooner?
Mamma, oh mamma, did you hear Bruno talk ?" Mamma smiled, and said gently, "Be quiet, son, while papa and the rest are talking: or else take Bruno out to the veranda." Cousin Ronald was amusing himself with the children.

Vi's doll presently began to cry and call upon her to be taken up, and she ran to it in surprised delight, till she remembered that it was "only Cousin Ronald and not dolly at all." But Cousin Ronald had a higher object than his own or the children's amusement: he was trying to divert their thoughts from the doings of the Ku Klux, lest they should grow timid and fearful..