Kneeling down by the dog, he looked up into her face with the gaze of ingenuous innocence.
"You wouldn't have wanted the poor little dog to have died in the snow, would you, Nurse ?...

It might, you know.

It won't be any trouble, I expect--" There was no reply.

He could hear Mary and Helen drawing in their breaths with excited attention.
"Father always said we might have a dog one day when we were older--and we are older now." Still no word.
"We'll be extra good, Nurse, if you don't mind.

Don't you remember once you said you had a dog when you were a little girl, and how you cried when it had its ear bitten off by a nasty big dog, and how your mother said she wouldn't have it fighting round the house, and sent it away, and you cried, and cried, and cried, and how you said that p'r'aps we'll have one one day ?--and now we've got one." He ended triumphantly.