Even the lake that
was so friendly by day was a chilly and forbidding playfellow on
the cool North Jersey nights.
There was nothing for a poor lonely pup to do but stretch out on
his rug and stare in unhappy silence up the driveway, in the
impossible hope that someone might happen along through the
darkness to play with him.
At such an hour and in such lonesomeness, Lad would gladly have
tossed aside all prejudices of caste,--and all his natural
dislikes, and would have frolicked in mad joy with the veriest
stranger. Anything was better than this drear solitude throughout
the million hours before the first of the maids should be
stirring or the first of the farmhands report for work. Yes,
night was a disgusting time; and it had not one single redeeming
trait for the puppy.
Lad was not even consoled by the knowledge that he was guarding
the slumbrous house. He was not guarding it. He had not the very
remotest idea what it meant to be a watchdog. In all his five
months he had never learned that there is unfriendliness in the
world; or that there is anything to guard a house against.
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