To the casual observer, he was but a beautiful and appealing and wonderfully cuddleable bunch of puppyhood.
Lad's dark eyes swept the porch, the soft swelling green of the lawn, the flash of fire-blue lake among the trees below.

Then, he deigned to look at the group of humans at one side of him.

Gravely, impersonally, he surveyed them; not at all cowed or strange in his new surroundings; courteously inquisitive as to the twist of luck that had set him down here and as to the people who, presumably, were to be his future companions.
Perhaps the stout little heart quivered just a bit, if memory went back to his home kennel and to the rowdy throng of brothers and sisters and most of all, to the soft furry mother against whose side he had nestled every night since he was born.

But if so, Lad was too valiant to show homesickness by so much as a whimper.

And, assuredly, this House of Peace was infinitely better than the miserable crate wherein he had spent twenty horrible and jouncing and smelly and noisy hours.
From one to another of the group strayed the level sorrowful gaze.
After the swift inspection, Laddie's eyes rested again on the Mistress.
For an instant, he stood, looking at her, in that mildly polite curiosity which held no hint of personal interest.
Then, all at once, his plumy tail began to wave.