Especially if the one dog be such a collie as Sunnybank Lad.

This the Master was due to discover.
On a sloppy and drippy and muggy afternoon, late in October,--one of those days nobody wants,--the Master came home from town; his fall overcoat showing a decided list to starboard in the shape of an egregiously bulged side-pocket.
The Mistress and Lad, as ever, came forth to greet the returning man.
Lad, with the gayly trumpeting bark which always he reserved for the Mistress or the Master after an absence of any length, cavorted rapturously up to his deity.

But, midway in his welcoming advance, he checked himself; sniffing the sodden October air, and seeking to locate a new and highly interesting scent which had just assailed his sensitive nostrils.
The Master put an end to the mystery, forthwith, by reaching deep into his overcoat's swollen pocket and fishing out a grayish golden ball of squirming fluff.
This handful of liveliness he set gingerly on the veranda floor; where it revealed itself as an eight-weeks old collie pup.
"Her name is 'Lady,'" expounded the Master, as he and the Mistress gazed interestedly down upon the sprawling and wiggling puppy.

"Her pedigree reads like a page in Burke's Peerage.

She--" He paused.