Frost had smitten the tall, dark stems; leaving only a copse of brown stalks.

Out of this copse, chewing greedily at an uprooted bunch of canna-bulbs, slouched Romaine's wandering sow.

At, sight of the Mistress, she paused in her leisurely progress and, with the bunch of bulbs still hanging from one corner of her shark-mouth, stood blinking truculently at the astonished woman.
Now, Lad had not obeyed the Mistress's soft chirp.

It had not reached his dulling ears;--the ears which, of old, had caught her faintest whisper.

Yet, he would have followed her, as ever, without such summons, had not his nostrils suddenly become aware of an alien scent.
Lad's sense of smell, like his hearing, was far less keen than once it had been.